


the soul perceives the truth that we cannot see - we are not alone

by Tobi_Black



Series: If at first you don't succeed, try again [7]
Category: Bleach
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Echoes of a Past Life reasserting themselves, Gen, Ichigo is THE Karakura cryptid, Ichigo is a Karakura cryptid, Isshin is a cryptid, Kurosaki Ichigo is Shiba Kaien, Kurosaki Ichigo-centric, Quincy!Ichigo, Quincy!Yuzu, Reincarnation, Shinigami Society, Shinigami/Zanpakutou Bond, Soul Memories, The Ichigo Effect, Vizard!Karin, possessive zanpakutou
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-10
Updated: 2020-08-10
Packaged: 2021-03-06 04:20:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 49
Words: 30,727
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25827331
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tobi_Black/pseuds/Tobi_Black
Summary: Karakura Town didn't work within 'normal' rules, so who thought it was a good idea to bring a live TV show - with its spiritualist - in? It was clearly just a recipe for disaster if the spiritualist wasn't a fraud.And Don Kanonji wasn't a fraud.
Relationships: Arisawa Tatsuki & Inoue Orihime, Arisawa Tatsuki & Inoue Orihime & Kuchiki Rukia & Kurosaki Ichigo, Arisawa Tatsuki & Kurosaki Ichigo, Arisawa Tatsuki & Kurosaki Isshin, Asano Keigo & Kojima Mizuiro & Kurosaki Ichigo, Hollow Ichigo | Zangetsu & Kurosaki Ichigo & Old Man Zangetsu | Quincy Zangetsu, Ishida Uryuu & Kurosaki Ichigo, Ishida Uryuu & Kurosaki Yuzu, Kon & Kurosaki Ichigo, Kuchiki Rukia & Kurosaki Ichigo, Kurosaki Ichigo & Kurosaki Isshin, Kurosaki Ichigo & Kurosaki Karin & Kurosaki Yuzu, Kurosaki Ichigo & Sado "Chad" Yasutora, Kurosaki Ichigo & Shiba Kaien, Kurosaki Yuzu & Shihouin Yoruichi, Nejibana & Shiba Kaien, Sado "Chad" Yasutora & Asano Keigo
Series: If at first you don't succeed, try again [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1337611
Comments: 35
Kudos: 134





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> BWAHAHAHAHA!! This part is FINALLY done!! Seventy-two pages on Word, by the Sage. Took FOREVER to finish. A good 90% of this is off-script of canon too.

When class ended the day after his mom had been avenged, Ichigo left with Rukia, Tatsuki, and Orihime, as per usual.

Orihime was chatting absently about a dream she’d had the day before involving sumo wrestlers, robots, and pie – or pi, Ichigo wasn’t terribly sure and didn’t think knowing which would make any part of the conversation make any more sense so he wasn’t asking – when he noticed that Ishida was skulking ahead of them at the school gates.

For a moment, he almost passed him by without comment.

“So, when you coming over for dinner, Ishida?”

Orihime giggled, “Did Kurosaki-kun ask you on a date, Ishida-kun?”

In unison, Ichigo and Ishida sputtered indignantly, “No!!! Why would you-?!” “No! He’s a _guy_!! I’m not-!”

Tatsuki just raised her eyebrows at their bright red faces, “We know Ichigo’s a guy, Ishida. And that matters why?”

Ishida sputtered wordlessly, and Ichigo rushed to correct her before this went on any longer.

She’d already had it out once this year with a third-year who’d taken offense at Chizuru boldly flirting with women not because she really didn’t take a hint to back off, but because _she_ was flirting with _women_. Instead of apologizing for decking the guy, she’d spent hours writing out a pamphlet that she could recite off the top of her head about how heterosexual relationships weren’t the end-all-be-all and it was just small-minded to hate on people for love.

He’d said nothing then about how she _might_ have had a crush on Orihime, and was pre-emptively making her position clear, which had only resulted in Chizuru hitting on her periodically as well. More so since Kon had shown up and that whole scene when she’d _mildly_ over-reacted to him using his body.

“He’s my cousin. My mom and his dad are some sort of distant cousins according to Goat Face, but he’s _family_ now.”

Ishida narrowed his eyes, glasses flashing as he pushed them, “Why are you saying that like you’re some sort of yakuza and I’ve been adopted in?!”

In unison, all three girls made soft exclamations that roughly translated as _you fool/you dumbass/poor sod doesn’t know_. Tatsuki extended a hand out and caught his shoulder, looking him directly in the eye, “You have. Accept it. You now number among the Kurosaki clan. Goat Face-banchou now has seven children claimed under his name.”

Rukia blinked, counting off on her fingers who said ‘seven children’ were. Throwing up five fingers, stalling, starting over, getting to six, starting over, and working her way up to five again.

“What’s with this pity!? I’m- No!”

Throwing up his hands and rapidly back-pedaling out of Tatsuki’s grip, completely missing how she _let him_ throw off her grip when even Ichigo regularly had trouble, Ishida stomped off, muttering how he refused to call some yankee punk cheating him out of first rank, ‘brother’.

Rukia’s head popped up as she realized she could be counted among the seven, “I’m not a _child_! I am-!” Ichigo slapped his hand over her mouth before she started talking about the Soul Society, even if the other two were in the know – it still made her sound crazy when she did this in broad daylight, and they were still within a block of the school.

Showing her maturity gained over ‘ten of his lifetimes’, Rukia kicked him in the shin, and as he hopped around on one foot, she started running.

Tatsuki sighed, looking at Orihime as if commiserating how she’d gotten messed up in this madness, “I mean, it’s not _much_ of a joke – I’m fairly certain that if my father hadn’t been willing to sue Goat Face after he tried to add me into the Kurosaki family registry eight years ago, he’d be blubbering on about having three daughters and two sons since he seems set on formally adopting Kon in, and the paperwork’s being processed to make it official that he has two sons.”

However, Ichigo didn’t hear any of _that_ , as he quickly recovered from Rukia’s kick and chased after her, barking out, “You’re so dead, Kuchiki!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> #Rukia: I'm already dead, you fool!


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> #Quincy background

Ichigo was debating on whether or not to tell Yuzu that the two Ishida _might_ be coming over for dinner tonight, when Goat Face came out of his office, looking like he’d had a slow day and spent most of it doing paperwork, saw that all three – four, because he’d been blubbering to his wife’s photo this morning as he showed her how he’d written Kon’s name, _correctly_ , into the family register and now he was just waiting for the official paperwork to go through – of his children were home and quietly went, “Ah.”

The fact that he didn’t immediately peel into dramatics, instead of that rather subdued reaction at the sight of them – like Ichigo had been _sure_ he would have, considering that this _had_ been Kon’s first official day at school as a Kurosaki, and he remembered _well_ the dramatics the rest of them had been subject to at this ‘milestone of growing up’ – alarmed him; it meant that he had something serious to talk about.

( _Really reminds you that he’d_ actually _been a captain of the Gotei, eh? Not that he_ usually _acts like it._ )

“Good. You’re all home. I’m sure you have questions about yesterday. Masaki and I didn’t want to burden any of you with this, not until we had to. We were hoping for when you all were much older, but yesterday proved that perhaps we- _I_ , should have said something before this.”

Ichigo snorted before he realized it, “Yeah.”

Isshin winced, but didn’t refute it.

They both knew that Isshin had had plenty of opportunity to bring something up following his wife’s death – a death that had been anything but by human hands – and thus he should have said something in the years since so that they could protect themselves in the event of what had killed her came back – and ultimately _did_ ­– but he hadn’t. He hadn’t even in the wake of the ‘truck through the wall’ and Rukia’s arrival. They both knew there was a chance that Isshin wouldn’t have _ever_ said something if he wasn’t forced to.

Both Ichigo and Karin got their trait of _denying until it goes away_ from _somewhere_ , and Yuzu was proof that their mom was the sort to face it head-on and quell it beneath their heels when something reared its ugly head, which left Isshin as the culprit for that particular bad habit.

There had been undeniable proof that Yuzu was like their mom, as last year, when Isshin had gone to the Hospital in town for a conference, while Karin had been upstairs studying for a test and he’d been out running an errand for her, there had been somebody who’d broken into the clinic and she’d subdued them with a frying pan. Karin had called Isshin home, and Ichigo had just gotten back himself when their father had come screeching in, only for them to see that Yuzu had gone back to making dinner after tying up and treating the boy while Karin glowered at the red-haired boy.

(In retrospect, Ichigo didn’t think he’d ever heard the full story from Yuzu about _why_ she’d thought confronting a burglar was a good idea, and he wasn’t sure he believed anymore that she’d just ‘happened’ to be carrying that pan when she’d gone to investigate the noise, and she’d swung it in surprise when she’d seen the intruder.

He’d been hesitant to believe her then, considering she’d hit hard enough to knock the boy out and leave a massive bruise and lump on his head. Karin hadn’t been able to say one way or another if Yuzu _had_ called for her, because she’d been studying with headphones in.)

Ichigo understood that Tatsuki _had_ been joking when she’d said before that Goat Face was kind-of like the don of a crime family, and they were a _family_ , but also – maybe it hadn’t completely been. If he didn’t have some vague memories of him in a haori and the feeling that Isshin was like Rukia, he could _completely_ believe the idea. He had believed it there for a year or two back in grade school.

( _He spent time in the World of the Living a while back. He came back acting like a gangster before Kukaku beat it out of him after he called her a ‘dame’._ )

And there _was_ that obsession with the Godfather and the Untouchables. Which might be the cause or an effect, of that.

“Was Mom like that weirdo we met yesterday?”

Karin spoke up while Ichigo was distracted and Isshin didn’t seem to know where to start with his Q&A, her arms crossing in front of her chest and looking unamused.

“If you mean the reiatsu archery, then yes.” The fact that he didn’t refute the ‘weirdo’ part came across clear, “She was a Quincy as well.”

Yuzu leaned forward, curiosity plastered all over her face, “Quincy?”

He nodded, “Your mom told me a bit, but I don’t _really_ know anything else more than the general gist, but I’ll tell you what I can.” – gesturing for everyone to sit down, then not starting up until they all had – “Quincy are human. At some point over a thousand years ago, they were just a tribe of people from the west that had the Sight, like Ichigo does.”

Then he paused for a moment, eyes narrowing in thought as he tried to remember how she’d explained why despite being born and bred Japanese for generations, she’d been thought a foreigner, considering he’d just told them that she _was_ , “I think Masaki said that all the older lines of Quincy were from Germany originally. The Ishida, who left there with one of the Crusades to the Holy Land – due to a spat with current leadership, I think; Masaki never really said, if she knew – before ending up on the Silk Road and making their way to Japan during one of the Chino-Japanese wars. Masaki’s family on the other hand, were a much later transplant, I think for the same reasons. They became cousin families a century or two ago; something about a great-great-aunt marrying one of his great-great-grandfather’s. That side of the family, Ryūken’s branch, moved from Tosa to Karakura then, which saved them from the fallout of Hiroshima later.” Isshin glanced at his wife’s photo, “Her family settled near Kyoto, and all lived and died there until it was just Masaki left, and she traced the family connection back a bit until she ended up with the surviving Ishida, then showed up and called them ‘cousin’ heedless of how thin the blood was by then.”

Yuzu got a determined look on her face, and Ichigo suddenly pitied whoever stood in her way.

Karin blinked in surprise at the influx of information, before looking speculatively at her father, and Ichigo knew where her thoughts were going as his thoughts were going there too, because while _they’d_ never really seen Ryūken around, Isshin clearly had gone out of his way to keep up with the man even after there was no need to keep up the thin family connection without their mother to justify it, and had been all up in his business to the point that he knew family history like that. She got the same sort of determined look on her face as Yuzu did, then.

Ichigo had a feeling that it was _Ryūken_ that was about to be the focus of their attention.

They shared a look, and in creepy twin-ish fashion, nodded in sync, speaking in stereo, “He’s family then.”

Isshin nodded, “Yep.” – before he continued from where he’d gotten side-tracked at – “So, Quincy in the simplest terms are humans with the Sight that gained the ability to fight back against monsters like the one you guys saw yesterday, hollows. Hollows are humans that have died and lost their humanity, that then try to eat the souls of others to fill the emptiness inside them that caused. Quincy learned to fight back because having the Sight, tended to leave them targets just as much as the souls of those that have died but not yet passed on. A bow became their weapon, made of the spiritual energy they had, and they fire arrows of that same energy at hollows.”

He looked at the bracelet still on Yuzu’s wrist, “Most humans with the Sight aren’t Quincy, can’t be. But every Quincy has one thing in common: that bracelet. It funnels their reiatsu and helps give their bow shape and form from what I understand. It won’t react to someone without Quincy blood.” – rubbing absently at an old burn mark on his own wrist that Ichigo hadn’t really noticed before – “Out of curiosity, your mother had me try, but it didn’t work.”

( **Probably didn’t work _right_. The Quincy cross is tuned specifically towards Quincy reiatsu along bloodlines, and that one is for a _Kurosaki_.**)

There was a pause, Isshin quiet for a long moment, long enough that they almost thought he was done, “Quincy aren’t the only ones who fight hollows, just like they aren’t the only humans with sight.”- before his gaze drifted towards Ichigo – “That would be shinigami. Shinigami are souls from Soul Society – a sort of separate dimension from the World of the Living, parallel to it – that have a similar reiatsu as Quincy that instead of bows, forms as swords, and allow them to cleanse hollows of the sins that they’ve committed since becoming a hollow, and send them into the cycle between Soul Society and the World of the .”

He didn’t say anything more for another long moment.

Ichigo felt like Goat Face was leaving out something _important_.

( _You’re going to stop_ there _, Isshin? You’re going to say nothing on the thousand years of conflict between Quincy and Shinigami? Nothing on_ why _?_ )

Then he stood up, “If you want to know more, that’s something you’ll have to ask Ryūken about.” – and made back to his office – “He knows that you three will have questions, so he’s expecting it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> #how to explain how two Quincy families were Japanese while still being pureblood Quincy #IE how the Ishida are still like 70ish percent pureblood but 100 percent Quincy because of arranged marriages with younger lines not quite as pure as the main lines without inbreeding #and that Masaki was of a much older purer line that is like 95ish pureblood #also you ever think about how if she WAS such a pureblood – like a Main Line instead of just a main line like the Ishida – that she married WAY beneath her in their eyes and messed up a thousand years of arranged marriages #that she and Ryuuken were the only ones to marry for love #like Isshin is still a Noble but the Quincy would HATE that she married outside of the Quincy let alone a shinigami regardless that he’s probably as much of a Noble as she is # . . . Masaki totally flipped the bird at all that pureblooded nonsense


	3. Rukia

Rukia had snuck up to Ichigo’s room as he entered through the front door, sitting herself down on his bed as she waited for him to tromp his way up the stairs, but he didn’t.

She waited for ten minutes, because even if it was quiet – so he wasn’t involved with Shiba-taichou’s comedy routine of a greeting and held up because of _that_ – it wouldn’t be the first time that he lingered downstairs after coming in to talk with his sisters. Rukia wouldn’t even be surprised if he was, not after the day before and everything that happened – but _she_ also wanted to talk about it.

There were lots of questions that she wanted answers to, and she hadn’t been able to get him alone at all since.

Part of that had been because she’d _hurt_ yesterday, even after Shiba-taichou took care of the worst of it, and he’d given her something that took that way but made things a bit fuzzy and she’d fallen asleep before she’d known it.

Part of it had been that Ichigo _knew_ she wanted to talk with him about all that had happened, and in a familiar fashion – one so much like Shiba-fukutaichou after she’d stopped being so timid and she’d yelled at him for leaving her with some of his paperwork while he went on a date with his wife – he’d been avoiding her. As much as he could when they never quite were in separate rooms long.

Rukia was debating whether she should go back to ground level and properly enter, just so she could corner Ichigo for a bit, when his door popped open and she opened her mouth, “What took-?”

Only that strange black cat came in, pushing the door open, before kicking it closed behind him.

For a moment they stared at each other, Rukia’s eyes narrowing as it when he sat back on his haunches, “Ichigo-chan will be up in a bit.”

While the cat casually licked one paw clean, she almost demanded to know what was keeping him, starting to stand to follow through with the plan to bully her way through the front door to corner Ichigo before he escaped her questions again. However, she didn’t, pausing in place to really _look_ at the cat, and try to piece together what she remembered of yesterday.

There weren’t any obvious gaps in her memory, but after that woman had shown up, parts of it were a bit _fuzzy_ and didn’t really clear up until Shiba-taichou took a look at her in the clinic. Mostly, she remembered impressions of the later half.

Looking at those familiar golden eyes, eyes that she’d previously dismissed their similarity to, but still looked so much like the woman who’d gotten her and Renji into the Shinigami Academy, because a) he was a _cat_ and as far as she knew, gold was a common eye color for cats, and b) the cat was a _he_ and the woman was, well, a _woman_. If they had both been male or both been female, _maybe_ she’d think to consider the two of them as one and the same, because other their golden eyes, the disappearance of one and the arrival of the other was only a little coincidental, circumstantial at best.

If her memory was right, she hadn’t seen him during most of the excitement yesterday, in the time between the girls going off on their own and when they’d regrouped. Her memory of around then was a little wobbly though, so she held her tongue on the thought, despite how while she couldn’t _explain_ it in the slightest, Rukia was _sure_ that the woman and this cat _were_ connected, and not by something flimsy.

If she could just _remember_ what the woman had said to her before she had passed out, something that she _knew_ had been an _important_ clue to figuring out what that connection _was_ ; Rukia had the feeling that she _had_ the answer to who the woman was.

Particularly as the idea that a cat and a person could be one and the same wasn’t immediately discredited again after having been exposed to Ichigo’s _Ichigo-ness_ for the last almost two months, and she was currently reevaluating.

Rukia _hmphed_ , crossing her arms, “He better be. I’d rather like to know if that was just a further extension of his _Ichigo-ness_ , or something else.”

The cat started laughing, “ _Ichigo-ness!! HAHAHA!_ ” – all but rolling on the ground clutching his stomach, before gradually trailing off to wipe a paw by his eye – “That’s good. Sums up all the strange and weird that regular exists around him. Really does the Shiba proud.”

Leaving before it processed that the cat knew who the _Shiba_ were, when by all accounts he shouldn’t.

“What?”


	4. Chapter 4

Ichigo was on the last step up the stairs when the Devil Cat left his room faintly chuckling, looking way too amused for his peace of mind. Particularly as those gold eyes turned towards him and chuckled louder before bouncing down the stairs towards where Yuzu had resumed dinner.

(There were ghosts of memories in his head of the last time he’d seen a black cat – the Devil Cat – look that self-amused, carrying a silk hair ribbon in its teeth.)

He shook it off for the moment as he came into his room to find Rukia staring at the door, looking like her worldview was shifting and she was starting to lose it.

“That cat. That cat is- is- is so _strange_.”

Ichigo gave her a flat look, knowing she had more to say to that, probably leading into _I’m pretty sure that’s not actually a cat_ , but he didn’t give her a chance to finish the thought.

His voice deadpan, “What gave it away.”

Her eyes narrowed at his sarcasm, but he didn’t have time to deal with trying to explain that the Devil Cat was an ally because of memories that weren’t even properly his, particularly because while not blatant, the Devil Cat wasn’t really trying to be all that subtle after the whole _I can talk_ debacle. _He’d_ figured out the whole not-actually-a-cat thing _weeks_ ago, but he had just let sleeping dogs lie while other things had been going on.

It hadn’t seemed to be causing any extra trouble, so Ichigo was intending to not go to stick his nose in that mess right now. Not when there were other, more important things happening. The _least_ of which what was that Devil Cat.

He rather that Rukia just leave it alone, and instead focus on said more important things.

As in: while Ichigo had been telling Yuzu that she should probably be the one to invite the younger Ishida, because he’d tried today and been shut down entirely, Tatsuki had texted him something terrible. He’d absently – foolishly – clinked on the link while reading _pretty sure that shady shopkeeper is behind this_ , while listening to Yuzu talk about how she’d bring it up the next time her sewing circle met. In the moments before the page had finished loading, it had felt like a Russian roulette wheel full of all the things that Urahara was possibly involved in was spinning, and he _really_ didn’t want to know but the regret had yet to sink in.

Tatsuki’s words hadn’t exactly been much help narrowing down what he’d be looking at, but the moment the page had loaded enough to show him the headline, he’d shut down the page until he could pull it up on his computer.

Leaving him deeply regretting ever looking at his phone, let alone clicking the link.

So, he ignored Rukia’s existential crisis about talking cats and typed in the link on his computer, “We got bigger problems.”

Her disbelief lasted as long as it took the page to come up to show itself in all of its horrid, garish colors and bold title page with terrible bed-sheet ghosts rising up around the kanji for ‘Karakura’s Cryptids’.

Front running was ‘the Flying Boy of Karakura’, which linked onto a separate page with that short clip of Kon jumping over buildings from a few weeks ago.

“ _This_ is a bigger problem.”

There was an over-dramatic description of the ‘Flying Boy’ before there was a series of comments beneath it.

_Isn’t that a Karakura High uniform?_

_Yeah, that’s a first-year’s. See the red pinstripes._

_That hair looks familiar._

_Isn’t there a kid in 1-3 with hair like that?_

_Maybe it’s dyed._

_Kurosaki claims it’s natural._

_You can’t see his face, but that _does_ look a lot like him._

_Do you think it is?_

_Maybe it’s a fake?_

_MODERATOR: This is the famous photographic proof that Ichigo-chan has been possessed! Straight from the source!_

_Where have you been, Moderator? It’s pretty well-known about the first-years that Kurosaki’s gotten possessed before. There is even a photo or two floating around among his older classmates about previous times. This is nothing new._

_MODERATOR: !!!_

_MODERATOR: I was working so Tessai-chan didn’t take away my internet access again. What other times?_

_I’ll post the one photo I’ve got._

None of the usernames looked familiar, but the second the photo – and he’d forgotten about this, it had been overshadowed by his mother’s death the month before – taken in that split second between where he’d been running with scissors, cackling, and where he’d been falling back after Tatsuki had punched him, just as a blur could be seen rising up out of him, he didn’t need to anymore.

His life was officially over.

That one additional photo prompted a bunch of people to come online all at once, all with photos of various times where he’d been interacting with the dead, like the word had been sent out of ‘provide proof of weird moments around Ichigo’ and people were dropping everything to put in their two yen.

It was all but confirmed that he’d been the ‘Flying Boy’ very quickly.

The Moderator – and he was going with Tatsuki on this, this felt like that shady shopkeeper – took the discussion to a whole new page. It didn’t have a title yet, but considering what was going up – and here Tatsuki was joining in a little too gleefully – it would be about how _he_ was a cryptid of Karakura, as his whole existence was unsubstantiated and that he stretched the limits of what was scientifically plausible through his ability to warp reality was being thrown around with abandon.

Tatsuki even brought up the power outage that had happened because Chad had ripped out a pole trying to hit a hollow, as proof.

Somehow pictures got brought in of Orihime’s old apartment and that someone had seen him running over rooftops from it after the wall was destroyed but that there was no explanation for how _that_ had happened. Even if he finally heard what Orihime had said had happened – and it was _weird_. He wasn’t surprised that her account wasn’t being taken all that seriously.

And pictures of him around that car accident caused by the hollow where Chad had gotten clipped.

 _Apparently_ one of his neighbors had heard the noise of the hollow breaking in their wall, and seen him trying to get Yuzu away from it, then taken a shaky photo of him shooting at it with his mom’s bow while she floated in mid-air, and was now posting it.

Then, it was like once it started, everyone had to add in about various moments in time – and some of these he’d didn’t remember, and others he’d been _nowhere near_ and _no way to be involved_ – about where reality had warped around him.

What was worse was how after a certain point in their apparent acquaintance with him, it wasn’t even a surprise for them that these things happened; many of them just seemed to shrug and go, ‘Ichigo’s in town, things get weird, we’ve accepted it’.

The only thing that made it in any way better was how Goat Face quickly got drawn in as another cryptid, though somehow _lesser_ than his own level of cryptid. And somehow not as the source of his being a cryptid, as he clearly was. But in particular, there was a pamphlet made by the Home Owner’s Association that basically outlined what to expect when living in their neighborhood, complete with a flowchart, and was also a warning, that basically _said_ that Isshin was a being unexplained by science.

Ichigo had heard of it before only because Tatsuki had made an off-hand comment once; he’d thought she’d been joking, because Goat Face was _extra_ and he would have been completely unsurprised if such a thing as this pamphlet was real, and now he found out it _was_ and he _was_ unsurprised.

Ichigo was trying to not put his face in a wall at how this had become his life, but he failed when all Rukia had to say, “So others have noticed the Ichigo Effect! I’m not alone!”


	5. Chapter 5

Rukia quickly got side-tracked by his new status as a cryptid, and for the sake of his sanity, Ichigo left her there at his computer.

Kon was standing in the doorframe, arms crossed and tapping his foot when he turned away from _that_ mess.

Ichigo was staring dead-eyed at him when the stuffed animal raised out one arm and pointed directly at him, the motion shaking beneath the force of his emotions, “What. The. Hell.”

“Yeah, no. I can’t deal with your existential crisis. There are too many going on in this room right now.”

The fact that it could be over his being half-Quincy or his new (not so new) status as a cryptid, did not matter.

He was choosing to not deal with it by instead focusing on how Kon had gotten wet from the rain yesterday, and while they’d dried off the stuffed animal, it didn’t really look like it had been thoroughly enough. There was this wet cat smell coming off him faintly, with some dried flakes of mud along his legs and feet.

A wash was in order to get Kon properly clean, but getting the surface dirt off would save him from accidentally scrubbing it in.

Beating him like a dusty blanket against the side of the house also had the added bonus of letting him work out the aggression of how it was _Kon_ that had taken him from an unofficial cryptid no one talked about to looking like he was about to become a main attraction for the town.

“OW!”

He would probably feel a bit bad about this later, but frankly Kon was usually a little shit and maybe he hadn’t done something _yet_ that warranted this – cryptid status aside – there was a very high chance that he would _soon_.

“Hey! What in the Soul Society do you think you’re-!” _WHACK!_ “Doing!!!”

Probably after being a pervert. Probably while in his body, and further ruining his hard-earned reputation.

“Guess. You’re a disgusting little germ farm. I’m knocking the dirt out of you.”

He wasn’t sure it would survive another dent considering that already, Rukia had thoroughly trashed his stoic and aloof facade _and_ had ruined his attendance record, while his escorting Tatsuki and Orihime (and Rukia) already regularly caused Keigo to wail nearly every morning about taking all the ladies for himself and Mizuiro to send him clapping hands emojis (that he neither understood nor _wanted_ to) during lunch when they all gathered on the roof with a _wink_.

( _Every damn time_ that he looked at or even _remembered_ Mizuiro’s emojis, there was a cackle in the back of his head.

**_A-a hahaha m-mir-ahaha-ckle, wi-witnessed a-hahaha-!!_ **

It was starting to get _really_ annoying.)

“It’s not like this happens to me every day!! There’s other ways to clean me, you know!!”

But being declared a _pervert_ would heavily tarnish what remained of the honorable delinquent image he had that would survive him being declared a cryptid, so Kon _did_ have _some_ blame for the current situation.

“You don’t have to knock the stuffing out of me-!” _WHOOM!_ “To clean me, bu-!!”

And just because his hard-earned reputation, surely in tatters by now, was on the verge of dying an inglorious death because of Ishida – because like _hell_ was Yuzu not going to _insist_ they do things together so they _bond_ like proper family, after she cornered Ishida about coming over for dinner, while also bullying the elder Ishida into making it a _regular_ thing because she was a touch _terrifying_ – didn’t mean Kon would _escape_ his retribution.

 _WAP!!_ “But- Butthead!!” _WAP!_ “You heartless-!” _WAP!!_

No, it would just mean they were _both_ going to _suffer_ because while being considered a delinquent, no one had paid much attention to how he and Ishida were both at the top of class scores but that wouldn’t last now that his reputation was effectively destroyed, and now they’d _both_ have to work to _stay_ at the top of the rankings or Ishida would _never_ let him live it down.

“A-assh-!!” _WAP!!_

Which made this also _preemptive retribution_ for how he was going to be considered a _teacher’s pet_ by his classmates and yet _still_ a delinquent to his teachers because of his hair and absences.

“Are you-!” _WAP!_ “-listening-!” _WAP!_ “-to me?!” _WAP!!_

“Ichigo, stop!” He paused in his next – probably unnecessary, considering most of the mud had already come off except around Kon’s claws but this was _therapeutic_ – strike to look back at Rukia, “I’ve got the proper cleaning equipment for him!”

Kon broke out in dramatic tears, “Oh, Rukia! I knew you’d come!! You’re always so-!”

Only to see what he did; her holding a stiff-bristled broom.

“Brutal. The word you’re looking for is _brutal_.”

This time the tears were real as Rukia swiped him out of his hand, pinned him beneath her foot, “Oof!” – before starting to scrub at his face with a _shunk!_ – “Aaaargh!!”

“OW! OW! OW! OW! OW!” _Really_ scrubbing at non-existent dirt by Kon’s ‘eyes’.

_Swuff! Swuff! Swuff! Swuff!_

Ichigo sweat-dropped at the sight for a moment, figuring that Rukia was getting a little bit of her _own_ retribution for how often Kon always seemed to end up under her feet and looking up one of Yuzu’s dresses or skirts. Most of which was because she’d come in through the window or pop out of the closet, rather suddenly and Kon had the misfortune to be stepped on with a clear line of sight up.

It wasn’t like he even intentionally looked any more, it just _was_ that his eyes would pop open no matter whether he closed them or not – and he _did_ after Karin had caught him on the ground looking up, and she’d casually started tugging one of his eye-buttons in threat for where his gaze was when Yuzu was dancing around the kitchen – when she stepped on his chest, and he always got an eyeful. What _was_ his fault was while blurting out ‘he didn’t see anything!’, what color of underwear she was wearing.

“Wait, wait!!”

The thing was, that he was unfortunately _very_ familiar with Yuzu’s cleaning closet thanks to her monthly ‘house and clinic spring cleaning’ and they didn’t _have_ a broom like that. There was a soft-bristle broom and then there was a small army of hard-bristle brushes of various sizes and shapes, but no _hard-bristle broom_.

“What?”

Unless the neighbors had one and she’d stolen it from _them_ , he knew where she could have gotten a broom like that, “Is that the school’s bathroom broom!? Where’d you get that!?”

Rukia stared at him for a moment, “From school.”

“Take it back right now!!” Ichigo started herding her towards his window, “Hmph . . I didn’t know you were so square.”

( _. . This was the reason why I made the whole squad start labeling all of their things._ )

“I’m not! It’s just common sense!!” Rukia rolled her eyes as she hopped onto the window frame, “Hey! Don’t put that on my floor! That’s gross!”

Once he’d firmly closed and locked the window behind him, he’d turned around to pop Kon out of his faux-body so he could just throw the plush into the dirty clothes to properly be washed, only to find him gone.

Ichigo shrugged as he debated asking Orihime or Tatsuki for that shady shopkeeper’s address, figuring that Kon had just went to hide among Karin’s toys to sulk for a while.


	6. Rukia

She hadn’t come right back to the Kurosaki residence after reluctantly returning the broom to the school, because she caught sight of the Ishida boy.

Her memory was a little fuzzy still on what had happened at the graveyard, but she remembered the elder Ishida had been there and maybe helped against the Grand Fisher? Maybe? He knew _something_ about how it all went down, for sure.

Rukia intended to try and directly observe the elder and see _what_ he knew. The sooner she did, the sooner she could try and remove the memories of hollows from yet _another_ person that because of Ichigo, knew more than they should about hollows and shinigami. Considering her luck so far with those around Ichigo, she didn’t expect the _kioku-chikan_ to do _much_ , but this wasn’t like Tatsuki or Chad – which she blamed their constant, continuous exposure to _Ichigo_ and his _Ichigo-ness_ for why the _kioku-chikan_ either didn’t work or didn’t work _long_ – the elder Ishida wasn’t even around Ichigo all that much, it _should_ work.

If it didn’t though, that should say whether Ichigo was _actually_ at fault of their ineffectiveness or it was the _kioku-chikan_ itself that needed to be fixed.

When she had snuck over during lunch to the hospital where he was though, she had been politely escorted off the premises a short time later. Like he’d _known_ she was there, because she’d been extra stealthy and there was no way he should have _other_ than because he could sense her reiatsu. Since her stealth skills were good enough that she’d been able to live in Ichigo’s closet until Orihime’s hollowified brother had forced her to reveal herself.

The fact that he had _any_ sensing ability was curious and suggested that he was a bit of a plus soul himself, maybe even capable of seeing her if she wasn’t in a gigai, and definitely better than Ichigo with it.

Not that it really took much to be better than _Ichigo_ , most of the time.

It was still really annoying that sometimes he had a better grasp of where hollows were than her, before her pager went off, and yet couldn’t pull in his reiatsu in from maximum levels in the _slightest_. That _at all times_ , his reiatsu was such a blazing light in her senses that it made sensing other things hard to do.

Particularly since she _couldn’t_ get a good read on Shiba-taichou because of Ichigo’s immense reiatsu, since there were moments where she was _sure_ he’d used some kidō but she couldn’t tell if he even _had_ any reiatsu.

Rukia didn’t intend to give up on cornering the elder Ishida just yet, but with the younger right there, she’d be a fool to not take advantage of this opportunity.

Particularly because like with Ichigo and Shiba-taichou, she figured that the younger had the same skillset as the older but perhaps without the sensory ability to know she was there that the elder seemed to have honed.

Only, she’d just barely followed him for two streets before he paused, turned around and _directly_ looked at where she was perched on a wall, “Kuch-?”

Long habit in the Rukongai made her run away the moment she realized she’d been recognized.


	7. Chapter 7

Ichigo was eyeing the address Tatsuki had texted him while he was in the bath as he ran a towel through his hair up the stairs to his room.

He paused at the top of the stairs as he heard Kon wail, before the plush lion came running from the direction of the twins’ room, “ICHIGOOOO!!!” – before he was throwing himself at his chest – “I’m sorry!! I’m sorry I ran away!! I realize now that I like your room the best!!!”

He raised his eyebrow at the sailor outfit Kon had been put in, recognizing it from one of Yuzu’s favorite anime, before wondering what Kon had gone through that made him so deeply regret running away. The outfit, even with all of its frills and skirt, didn’t seem to be anything but the final straw that broke the camel’s back as Kon _clung_.

“What’s all the commotion?”

He shut the door behind him before trying to remove Yuzu’s miniature cosplay off Kon, “Apparently, he ran away but seems to have regretted it.”

Kon wasn’t any help as he clutched at his shirt with all the strength in his little plush arms, “Orihime- soccer ball- girls chase- Chad chase- _Yuzu_ -!”

None of that should have made much sense – but he sadly, he did understand most of that.

Orihime had been talking about a game that combined soccer and baseball the last couple of days that Tatsuki kept asking input on how ‘yakka’ would actually _work_ from him in regards to soccer rules. It _still_ made his head hurt trying to think of the logistics of a baseball offensive and soccer defensive that didn’t put the defending team at a huge disadvantage.

Kon must have come across where the two were trying to find a practical solution to Orihime’s game, before something that resulted in some girls chasing him – and he was kind-of afraid to check to see if Kon had just gained an entry as a cryptid of Karakura Town on that shady shopkeeper’s site because of it, or if it had been attributed to him again – that had resulted in Chad seeing him. Considering Chad’s penchant to collect small cute things, and they _always_ turned out a little weird – case in point: the cockatiel that had been possessed by the boy Yûichi, and that little plush he’d named Mr. Seaweed that eerily looked like one of Rukia’s drawings months before they’d met her – it wasn’t hard to see why Chad had started chasing Kon.

He could easily imagine that Yuzu had picked him up after he’d escaped and made it back home, and Karin had made some off-hand comment about dressing him up after cleaning him up that had resulted in _this_.

Rukia bounced on his bed as she watched him lightly tug on the little flower Yuzu had stuck to one of Kon’s ears, hoping that the glue hadn’t dried yet, “Maybe it’ll come off if you yank really hard.”

“NOOOO!!!!”

Unfortunately, he didn’t think the little flower was going to come off quite so easily, since he had a feeling that she’d used her instant-death adhesive. He could have _sworn_ Goat Face had banned that from the house after she’d practiced putting stick-on nails on him with it and it had taken a week from him to get them off, “No, but his ear will come off.”

However, she _did_ say afterwards that there was some sort of warm water-soap mixture that got it off her hands, so maybe it would help get the flower off.


	8. Yuzu Interlude

Yuzu woke up, and pouted when she realized that Kon had left during the night.

She’d known he would – or Karin would kick him out, because even if she blatantly ignored that Kon wasn’t _normal_ most of the time, she drew the line at pretending when it came to other people sleeping in their room. Even if they weren’t people-shaped, or maybe that was _especially_ , since it was only Kon and His Majesty that she had issues with.

Most of the time the only reason why His Majesty could come into their room was if he wandered in after Karin went to bed.

 _That_ might have had to do with His Majesty finding her sister’s stash of extra-girly manga under her bed and announcing as much during dinner, though.

Kon probably left the moment she was asleep as she’d taken advantage of how most of the time, Kon hid the fact he was sentient from them until he slipped up somewhere and they generally pretended to not notice, and so once he’d been cleaned up, she’d dressed him up.

In one of the little toy-cosplay pieces that she made when she wanted to work on something beyond her more standard affair, and that she sometimes made full-sized versions of later. Mostly because she enjoyed the challenge and partly because Uryū would sometimes show off some piece of clothing expertly done while pushing up his glasses, and it was _challenge accepted_.

It had gotten a little out of control the last couple of months, and she was running out of room in her closet for the dresses she’d made. It was getting to the point that she was thinking of looking into making a website so she could sell some of them.

Yuzu figured that Ichigo would return the little outfit to her after breakfast, because Kon would have totally gone crying to Ichigo – because for some reason, Ichigo was the only one Kon didn’t try hiding that he was alive from.

Which she _was_ curious about, but she wouldn’t press. Just like any other skittish animal, she’d make it clear that she was open and accepting of him and then let him come to her.

And it wasn’t like she didn’t _understand_ why Ichigo knew – despite how hard her older brother _tried_ to adhere to his delinquent image, he was a giant softy at heart and had probably saved Kon from being trashed. Not to mention she totally recognized Ichigo’s stitchwork on Kon, so he’d probably been all ripped to hell and at the _very_ _least_ , he’d fixed Kon up.

Though there _was_ also how sometimes Ichigo wasn’t _Ichigo_ , but _Kon_ , and she just took careful note of when that was and made sure to mix up their meals so she could pick out Kon’s preferences such as hating asparagus and onions.

It was easiest to tell though when any sweets she made after school were eaten, because Ichigo would eat a couple as a snack, with a preference for chocolate, but Kon would happily eat the whole plate, with a _slight_ preference for anything caramel as he had a sweet tooth.

Maybe she would make some berry muffins for breakfast today to make it up to Kon for using him as a body-dummy to see how well the sailor moon plaited skirt came out, then gluing that flower on because she _hadn’t_ forgotten finding him looking up on the floor when she’d been dancing around in the kitchen but the instant-death adhesive might have been a _bit_ much.


	9. Chapter 9

The next couple of days were quiet, normal, then Yuzu had met up for her sewing circle and came home skipping, humming a little tune as she’d then hugged the Devil Cat to her chest with an unnerving smile

It had continued into the next morning as she’d made breakfast – and no one had been brave enough to ask _why she was smiling_ – but he’d found out why anyway, after the school day had ended and as he’d waved good-bye to Chad, Ishida showed up from behind him, “Your sister was very insistent yesterday that I show up for dinner sometime soon.”

Clutching his chest after his heart had nearly leapt out of his throat, he whirled on Ishida to see him adjust his glasses while uncomfortably looking out at where Orihime was dragging Tatsuki off to see the shady shopkeeper for more of those _unique_ candies, “Say something before you just show up behind someone!”

He adjusted his glasses again, very pointedly, “Did I not say something?”

Ichigo pointed a finger in his face, “No! You sly bastard, I thought you had left already.”

Ishida started walking past him, “I was talking with a teacher regarding next week’s assignment.” – nearly, but not quite, brushing past his shoulder in the process – “Since I’m already done with this week’s.”

Narrowing his eyes at his distant cousin over the quiet jab over how Ishida had climbed to the top of the class rankings yesterday, he smirked as he returned it since he had an idea what had brought on Ishida’s earlier comment, “She got you with tears, didn’t she?”

That got him a flash of his glasses once he paused a step ahead, “No.” – but only for a moment as Ichigo caught up, and made shooing motions at Rukia behind Ishida’s back – “Just before the meet was over, she quite loudly announced that she’d just found out her mother had family in town and while she wanted to invite them over for dinner sometime soon to get to know them, the family relation was quite thin and she wasn’t sure it was enough for them to think it counted. While looking at _me_.”

“Ah.” Ichigo scratched by his eye, “Tears are how she gets us – or more accurately, Goat Face – when she wants to do something but knows we wouldn’t normally agree. It’s also how she got the local shelter to become a no-kill.”

Ishida looked at him, quiet for a moment as they approached where Ichigo would go left and he would go right, “Your sister is a little terrifying.”

Ichigo immediately agreed, because he didn’t doubt that if Ishida didn’t show up for a dinner soon, that Yuzu would follow through with her implied threat of spilling the beans to the other ladies during the next meet for their sewing circle to corner him into coming over or getting no peace about it.

“Next Thursday.”

“What?”

Ishida didn’t answer as he walked off, and then Rukia was there, asking about what all that had been, while jabbing in the side with one of her body elbows because she wasn’t a _dog_ to just be shooed off like that. He just stared after Ishida for a few more moments, saying more for himself than her, “I think Yuzu just got a date for the family dinner she wanted.”

Then he was chasing after her to get her in a headlock because that had _hurt_ ; she had _very_ sharp elbows and she’d got him right in the _kidney_.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> XD

Yuzu had predictably, been very excited by his report that in little over a week, Ishida would be over for dinner.

Goat Face had proceeded to cry into his wife’s giant poster about unity and family, but he’d been tuned out a short while after, only to pick up the phone and blubber into it.

Even without being able to hear the other side, they’d all _heard_ the icy _silence_ that had cut through all that noise to shut their father up after something had snapped, “ _Kurosaki, did you call for something important? Or just to waste more of my time?_ ”

Karin had let out a low whistle, “Daaaamn. Can I learn that?”

Isshin had whipped his head around and gasped dramatically, and kept gasping dramatically as he clapped his hands over Yuzu’s ears and pulled her out of sight, before his face popped back out for one last sight of his affronted, surprised face gasping dramatically.

The phone that Isshin had dropped had more pointed, icy silence from the elder Ishida, “ _. . .”_

Karin picked up the phone after a moment, “I’m sorry he called for such a stupid reason, but can you teach us how you shut him up like that? Maybe at the family dinner next Thursday?”

From the look Karin gave the phone before she put it on speaker made her think this trailing silence might have been the elder Ishida hanging up abruptly, before there was the distant noise of someone calling for _Ishida-sensei_ , “ _. . It would be my pleasure to. I’ll make sure to clear my schedule for that evening._ ”

Then the phone call was over.

They all (correctly) read his response at this being the first time he’d heard about this dinner.

Isshin yelped before Yuzu came back out of the kitchen to point her wooden spoon at them, eyes narrowed like she was just _daring_ them to argue, “Thursday nights are now going to be a dedicated Family Night.”

When there was no protest, she returned to the kitchen and kicked their father back out into the living room, where he was ignored by his other children as Karin made to go back out for a pick-up game of soccer and Ichigo went upstairs dragging Kon along.

Ichigo could have _sworn_ he heard the Devil Cat say something about a ‘Kisuke’ teaching something to Goat Face, but it was lost as the older man screeched when the evil feline bounced into his lap, and pointer-pawed a very sensitive spot in the process, before bounding into the kitchen to beg for snacks.

( _No, you heard right. It would have been Urahara to teach him that, because that man probably started half of these ‘memes’ just so people would understand when he was trolling them and so he could indirectly troll others._ )

It was better for his sanity to ignore it.

 _All_ of it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Karin: cusses  
> Isshin: *surprised Pikachu face*
> 
> #Urahara trolls the world #he is a - the - meme-king  
> #Urahara invented memes #I refuse to accept otherwise


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> XD

The next day did _not_ get any better.

There was a hollow in the early morning, so he’d left Kon behind in his body only to come back to the sight of a double-knock-out when Goat Face woke Kon up but Kon didn’t move fast enough to dodge even while his reflexes kicked in to kick Goat Face in the face at the same time.

Karin had taken one look at his face when he’d come down a few minutes later, and had without a word, helped him bury their father up to his neck in the back yard while Yuzu smeared some honey on the back of his neck.

Rukia had left before him because they were running late, and he’d been halfway to school before he’d realized he’d forgotten his wallet and had to double back for it. His shoelaces had snapped going back out of his house, and twice he’d tripped over nothing on the way to school, only to come into second period late to a round of slow clapping from Mizuiro.

During lunch, another pair of shoelaces had snapped and he’d tripped over nothing up the stairs, and Tatsuki had applied some band-aids to his face during a break because one cheek had gotten scratched up from where he’d gone face-first into some bush.

Disaster had nearly struck twice if Chad hadn’t picked him up by the back of his shirt to avoid where a driver blew past a red light and almost hit him, only to knock down a streetlamp that almost hit him when it fell if Tatsuki hadn’t pulled him out of the way.

When he’d gone to take care of a hollow a hour or so later, there had been a sudden rain-shower that had soaked him through for the five minutes it had rained, and Rukia had laughed and said he’d looked like a half-drowned cat.

Once he’d dried off some and kicked Kon back out of his body, he’d firmly settled down on the coach and not moved even when Goat Face and Yuzu’s favorite show, _Spontaneous Trips to Spiritual Hot Spots_ , came on.

He’d thrown a disgusted look at the TV before grabbing one of the magazines left on the dining table, casually flipping through it and sipping at the juice Karin had brought over for both of them as she’d read a chapter of some of her assigned reading.

“ _LET’S BRING HIM ON OUT! THE NEW CENTURY’S PREMIER SPIRTUALIST! HELL’S MESSANGER!_ ”

That last line made him snort because he’d _seen_ Hell and while that man’s fashion sense was hell _ish_ , it was no worse than Goat Face’s, but it just got him shushed by Yuzu.

“ _MR. DON KANOJI!!!_ ”

“ _SPIRITS ARE ALWAYS WITH YOU!! BOHAHAHAHA!!_ ”

He looked back up when Yuzu and Isshin both crossed their arms over their chests with their hands clawed and mimicked that terrible laugh, “BOHAHAHAHA!!”

Ichigo almost asked what they were doing – _why_ they were doing that stupid pose and shout – but he was _vastly_ uninterested regarding this new super popular fake, and didn’t want to find out _anything more_ about him. As it was, he was probably going to be listening to Keigo do that laugh tomorrow because his friend was very susceptible to fads like this, and he had been the last couple of weeks already – and Mizuiro would be doing it just to get a rise out of him, that _asshole_.

“ _I’M GONNA LET YOU BABIES HEAR THE WHISPERS OF THE SPIRITS AGAIN THIS WEEK!! BOHAHAHAHA!!_ ”

“BOHAHAHAHA!!”

Despite himself, his eye had twitched every time the phony spoke up – just like it had this whole spring, _every_ Wednesday night at 8 – listening to Kanonji Misaomaru, otherwise known as Don Kanonji.

Then he’d stumbled across ‘Madame Akiyama’s Weekly Global Astrology Reading’ and his mood immediately soured when he’d read beneath Cancer: _There’s no easy way to say it, this week will be catastrophic. Bad things will rain down on you – you may even lose your will to live. <3 Your lucky number is 666. Your lucky colors are red on black!_

He dropped the whole magazine with disgust.

Despite – or maybe because of him – being able to see the dead, it had made him incredibly skeptical towards these things; made him hate them. More often than not it was all – astrology, fortune-telling, feng shui, psychics – fake and they just preyed on the hopes and desperation of the gullible and exploited them for money.

So even if this fraud Madame Akiyama said that those born under the sign of Cancer would be having abysmal luck this week – and he’d _had_ some truly terrible luck so far this week – he’d didn’t believe in this crap.

Refused to.

Not to mention there was something about the way they’d depicted the chibi-woman that was supposed to be ‘Madame Akiyama’ that felt almost _familiar_. They’d given ‘her’ a blonde bob-cut with lop-sided bangs and the biggest smile. The kimono she was in was a soft poison pink with a white haori.

His first instinct was that he could definitely see that shady shopkeeper having a part-time job giving out these nonsense predictions, but for some reason neither the name nor the little image matched what he thought of.

(Crimson hair with small round eyebrows and a small smile, in black, holding a fan. With some name that was a variation of either _Urahara_ but with different kanji, or a wordplay on _beachside field_.)

This was someone else, but still someone he could _almost_ remember.

(A tall man with long blonde hair, with the biggest grin, who had once said _keep your friends close, but your enemies closer_.)

 _Still_ , it had been fine as long as he did his best to ignore the TV as he’d aggressively chewed on his ice until the fake had said his tag line: “ _SMELLS LIKE MEAN SPIRIT!!_ ”

Mostly because, every time without fail, Yuzu cheered, “He’s so cool!!” or “Wow!! He’s so amazing!! I wish I could see ghosts like that!!”

Karin was blatantly staring at him by then instead of reading her book, “What’re you looking at? If you want juice, mine’s gone.”

She blinked like she hadn’t even realized that she’d been staring at him, “Huh? Oh, no . . I’m good.” – then looked away like she _wanted_ to say something, “Nothing . .”

There was an awkward moment as both of them did this little dance around what neither of them really _wanted_ to talk about but knew _should_ be talked about.

“ . . ? What is it?”

“ . . .”

“Aren’t you going to watch . . _that_?”

“Oh. I’m not into it.”

Which was when she’d snickered at his blatant relief that someone else in this family – because Kon was sitting in Yuzu’s lap, entranced as well, and had annoyingly did that stupid laugh too when he wanted to be a little shit – didn’t see the appeal.

Then because Karin was a _touch_ less avoidant than him, she was the one to start the conversation, “Yuzu idolizes that guy. She and Goat Chin can’t see ghosts, so this sort of stuff impresses ‘em. Part of it is because if _he_ can see ghosts, maybe one day _she_ could. It makes her feel like less of an outsider that she can talk about this stuff too through this.” – then before he could really start to feel guilty about that, because he hadn’t _known_ that Yuzu had felt that way, she indirectly brought up the real topic that they’d been skirting around – “Maybe I can’t see spirits as well as you can, but that charlatan doesn’t do much for me.”

There was a moment of quiet as Ichigo just stared at her, remembering that she’d seen that first hollow, and had communicated with Yûichi. Not to mention that he could have _sworn_ it had been her and Yuzu’s reiatsu that had shot at the Grand Fisher there at the end.

It reminded him of how he was fairly certain that she had seen Rukia in her shihakushou and remembered her like that.

He opened his mouth to start _that_ conversation, because Goat Face wasn’t and she was _asking_ – in such a way that if he _didn’t_ know, he _wouldn’t_ catch what she was really asking, but he _did_ hear her asking about the _other things_ , not just the dead they’d seen all their lives – when Yuzu startled them both with a wordless shriek.

Karin actually sprayed him with the juice she’d been drinking in her surprise.

He wiped off the stuff around his eyes as the Devil Cat pranced in, fur all puffed up and looking like he’d stuck a fork in an outlet, eyes so wide the whites could be seen and his ears pinned all the way back. Ichigo managed to open one eye again just in time to see Isshin fall over with a scream, the Devil Cat attached to his head, “What?! Don’t shout like that, Yuzu!!”

Her hands flailed around in the vicinity of the TV that now showed a familiar building, “ _NEXT WEEK WILL BE AN EMERGENCY LIVE BROADCAST SPECIAL!! WE’LL BE VISITING AN ABANDONED HOSPITAL IN KARAKURA-CHO, TOKYO!! AND MAYBE WE’LL EVEN SEE THE LOCAL CRYPTID, THE FLYING BOY!!_ ”

Before showing the now- _very_ familiar image of Kon jumping through the air before it cut to commercial.

Ichigo dropped his head in his hands and didn’t look up from them as he went upstairs and laid face-down in bed, trying to smother himself in his pillow.

He ignored how his phone was buzzing over and over with text messages and calls from his friends.

He was going to punch ‘Madame Akiyama’ in the _face_ when he found _him_ again for nailing that horoscope on the head with ‘ _bad things will rain down on you – you may even lose your will to live_ ’.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Elsewhere, in Karakura, a CERTAIN blond sneezes four times and wonders who wants him dead NOW
> 
> Elsewhere, a different blond is giggling as he updates his site with new information, having been waiting for the announcement to air ever since he'd 'recommended' Karakura as a location to a certain show.  
> The site crashes an hour later beneath the unprecedented traffic


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> #Kaien: *while Ichigo is asleep* Shinji. Shinji. Shinji. Shinji. Shinji. Shinji. Madam Akiyama is Shinji. Shinji. Shinji. Shinji. Shinji. Madam Akiyama is Shinji. Shinji. Shinji. Shinji.  
> #Kaien: this is for getting it into Ukitake-taichou’s head that I would make a good lieutenant, Shin-ji  
> #Kaien: he bothered me for a decade until I entered the Academy, Shin-ji  
> #Kaien: then called dibs on me joining his squad the second my paperwork processed – literally the second – then drank Kyouraku-taichou under the table in celebration, Shin-ji  
> #Kaien: prepare to lose a few teeth from that stupid smile, Shin-ji  
> #Kaien: Shinji. Shinji. Shinji. Shin-

Ichigo tried to get to school a little early to _avoid_ the extra attention the photo of Kon would cause, but it was futile. From the moment he’d stepped out the door, people had been looking over at him, whispering to friends, pointing at him behind his back, and he could just about hear them say _is that him-?_

It was probably for the best that Kon had steered clear of him since last night’s show, because this went _beyond_ ruining his reputation.

And whoever had sent that photo to _Spontaneous Hot Spots_ , they better stay clear of him too, but considering that literally anyone in Karakura – except his family, he’d seen their genuine surprise at seeing that photo – could have recommended Karakura for the show, he was tempted to just leave town, maybe become a hermit in the mountains.

While leaving his phone behind, because it hadn’t stopped blowing up with texts from his friends.

Mizuiro had been sending him laughing-so-hard-they-cried emojis – or more accurately, _spamming_ him with them – since the photo had aired. They’d just increased after he’d sent him a middle-finger emoji this morning.

Then, just as he’d _finally_ gotten to his classroom and barely getting the door open to Mizuiro immediately saying, “I’m surprised you didn’t fly in-?” – Orihime was standing right there on the other side of the door, clearly waiting for him, before she’d given him a wide smile as she’d did that _stupid_ pose and laughed – “BOHAHAHAHA!!”

Ichigo almost stepped back and closed the door in her face as his eye twitched, but instead flipped Mizuiro off in person as he greeted Orihime, “H-hey?”

She pouted slightly, “That wasn’t much of a reaction. Don’t you know what it is?”

“Spontaneous Trips.” He wished that _no one_ knew what she was referencing – like usual – instead of _everyone_.

A twenty-five percent rating meant that one out of every four Japanese people watched Spontaneous Trips, and as _most_ middle-aged people wouldn’t watch it – Goat Face, as always, being the exception – that meant about all the younger people were watching the show, unfortunately. Which meant that all of his classmates would have _seen_ that unfortunate photo there at the end.

Orihime beamed, “Right!!” – then she winked – “C’mon, Ichigo, say-!”

“Banzai!” Tatsuki swooped in and started herding her to their seats.

“Tats- Tatsuki!? What!?”

“Class is about to start soon, let the cryptid come into the classroom.” Orihime kept trying to turn around, but Tatsuki didn’t pause in how she was all but manhandling the other girl, even as she glanced at him and gave him a significant look.

He took the opening to close the door to the small crowd that was lingering behind him, snickering, and made for his seat ignoring how that damn show was the talk of the class.

“Did you watch Spontaneous Trips last night!?” “Of course!!”

“I heard they’re filming around here next week!”

A few classmates glanced his way, “Wonder if the Flying Boy will make an appearance.”

He’d just dropped his bag by his chair when Keigo almost literally bounced over with an unholy glee written all over his face, “Hey! Ichigo!” – then once he’d glanced over, he and Mizuiro crossed their arms – “BOHAHAHAHA!!”

His eye twitched, then he saw Chad, his arms crossed across his chest in the same pose, and felt a sweat-drop slide down his face, “Et tu, Chad?”

Chad shrugged slightly before sitting down in the seat behind him.

All of his friends were _assholes_ , it was official.

(There was laughter in his ear; cackles and snickers and even the occasional quiet little noise of amusement at this.)

Ichigo dropped his head down on his desk, silently bemoaning this fact and how the whispers of other voices in his head just seemed to find it _hilarious_.

He wanted to pretend he knew _none of them_ when their homeroom teacher threw open the door, and said to a round of snickers and _hello_ _, sensei_ , “Continue laughing at Ichigo’s inability to not attract attention, later, class has started now.”


	13. Chapter 13

Keigo was the one to ask him if he was going to make an appearance on the show between classes.

“Heck, no!”

He _said_ that, but Ichigo _knew_ he’d end up unhappily going since Yuzu and Isshin were going. If all went well though, he wouldn’t make an _appearance_ , he’d just be part of the live audience to a fraud faking an exorcism. He might commit fratricide if the Flying Boy of Karakura showed up on national television, _on_ national television.

Keigo pouted, “Why not!?” – before he flung himself forward the short distance between them to cling around his middle with dramatic tears in his eyes – “Don’t you get it!? Japan’s top show is coming to _our town_!?”

“You live in Naruki! You can’t just claim Karakura because it’s suddenly cool!” Ichigo tried to peel the boy-shaped-octopus off him, but Keigo had spent too much time around Isshin because he was _attached_. As in he _wouldn’t come off_ without inflicting _bodily_ _harm_.

“IIICCCCHHIIIIGGOOOO!!! _You_ _have to come!!!_ ”

“No, I don’t!!” Even a hand applied to his face and pushing it away wasn’t doing much, not even muffling him as it instead made his voice all nasally, “IIICHHIIIGGOOO!!”

Hence why he resorted to jabbing two fingers into his armpit and watching him jerk away, then flail as he fell to the ground in a heap, “Ichigo, you jerk!!”

Keigo flailed one arm to behind him, “I even went to the trouble of asking Rukia to go, too!!”

Ichigo turned a flat look on her as she curtsied after stepping around the corner she’d been waiting behind, “Hello, Ichigo~” Acting like she _hadn’t_ spent the _entire_ way to school laughing at him for being nationally recognized as a cryptid, that little miss imposter.

Keigo crossed his arms, “Here, Rukia, do the bohahaha-!”

“Oh, no, I’m much too demure to do that!” She pretended to shyly turn away like a high-born lady, the newest act in her repertoire of bad acting for his classmates.

( _As a Kuchiki, she actually_ is _a high-born lady, you know._ )

The act always left him a little unsettled because it just felt _wrong_.


	14. Chapter 14

Ichigo was having lunch alone for once, just needing space from everyone, when he saw that Ishida was also sitting alone out on the lawn.

The other teen lifted his head a moment later to look directly at him, before narrowing his eyes.

Now, Ichigo figured that Ishida would look away a moment later, and they would continue to ignore each other for the rest of lunch, but then he’d stood up and made right for him, and jabbed his chopsticks right at him once he was close enough, aimed right for his _face_ , “Do you have _any_ concept of subtlety?!”

On his wrist was the same sort of bracelet as the one Yuzu had taken to wearing primarily since the Grand Fisher’s re-appearance, and there was something he was going to ask regarding it but the accusation distracted him from it.

His eye twitched, “Excuse me!?”

“That photo of you jumping at building height! I’m going to have to find a new route to school because of you!”

Ichigo blinked, “What?”

“Did you hear that?” “The yelling?” “Yeah, where’s it coming from?”

Ichigo scooted over slightly so that Ishida could sit down behind his tree, out of the line of sight of a group from class 1-2. They ate their respective lunches in silence until the voices left.

Once they were gone though, Ishida moved closer and nearly stabbed his hand with his chopsticks, “A local shopkeeper is setting up a little stand down the street selling pictures of _you_ , at the spot where that photo was taken.”

“ _What?_ ”

He didn’t know _why_ – no, he _did_ , his self-denial could only stretch so far – but that shady shopkeeper immediately came to mind.

( _Urahara . . !_ )

Ishida kept going, “ _Your photo_ , as the Flying Boy of Karakura. With a few new ones of you doing similar things.” – one hand pushing up his glasses sharply – “And saying that you’ll be making an appearance on that show next week, so they should show up for it.”

Ichigo regretted getting out of bed this morning. Why had he? In the span of two days he’d gone from a delinquent to the local cryptid, a _town attraction_.

No, he was really regretting _not leaving for the mountains last night_ instead of letting Karin convince him that not _that_ many people had seen and recognized him in the photo; they’d both known it was a _lie_ , a terribly _weak_ lie, because it was _obviously_ him, but self-denial was _strong_ in them.

The only consolation here was now he had a fairly good idea of who had sent that photo to Spontaneous Trips, because _he_ was the one most benefiting here – first with that website, and now with a stall selling exclusive photos of Kon being an _idiot_.

He ignored the quiet whimper that came from his bag, as Kon _realized what he’d done_.

Ishida turned towards his bag with a narrow-eyed look, “ _What_. Was _that_?”

“I didn’t hear anything.”

That look was then turned towards _him_ , “ _Kurosaki_.”

They stared at each other for a few moments.

Ishida looked away first, then adjusted his glasses again before he was standing up with his bento in hand and about to leave, “Just don’t let the teacher catch you with an ‘animal’ in your bag.”

The skepticism in _animal_ went so far beyond disbelief, quotation marks could be _heard_ without any visual aid.

Ichigo waited until he was gone before he was grinding his knuckles into Kon’s face, not acknowledging the litany of barely-quiet stifled _ow ow ow ow-!_ that caused as he finished his lunch.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> #Kon: *makes a noise*  
> #Uryuu: . .   
> #Ichigo: . . .  
> #Uryuu: Kurosaki-  
> #Ichigo: *DENIES*  
> #Uryuu: . . . . .  
> #Uryuu: *decides that whatever Ichigo’s involved in, he WANTS NOTHING TO DO WITH* *proceeds to leave before WHATEVER ICHIGO IS INVOLVED WITH is something HE is involved with*


	15. Rukia

Rukia had no intention of giving up on cornering the elder Ishida, but it was easier to get close to the younger Ishida undoubtedly.

Being in the same class let her observe him openly, while with every time Ichigo and him interacted – and the number was increasing from what it had been before the appearance of the Grand Fisher, since apparently, the two were distant cousins and _that_ had come out on that day – she got to do so closely since she was rarely far from Ichigo.

There was something about him, some _edge_ that reminded her of her brother.

Where Ichigo kept giving her the feeling that he’d spent time in the farthest parts of the Rukongai when he got _angry_ , Ishida had this bearing like a noble, _sharp_ and cold. It was there in his eyes, in his shoulders, like he was a lord walking among his people and it didn’t matter that he _looked_ like them, it was obvious he _wasn’t_ one of them. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t emulate that seemingly effortless noble aura, and yet this _human_ had it.

What was particularly curious though was how she couldn’t picture him ever wielding a zanpaku-tō after he died and went to Soul Society, even while acting like a plus soul with reiatsu already. Which _should_ have been impossible, but like anything in Ichigo’s vicinity, _impossible_ didn’t seem to apply.

More than that though, he didn’t seem to be _like_ Tatsuki or Chad, or even Orihime, all of who she _knew_ would have one, but neither was he like Keigo and Mizuiro, whom she thought _might_.

Instinctively, she thought his weapon would be a _bow_ , but she wasn’t sure if that was just because she knew the younger Ishida practiced archery like the three Kurosaki kids, even if it was supported by that fuzzy memory she had of his father and a bow.

And that meant _something_ , even if she didn’t quite know _what_.


	16. Chapter 16

Ichigo impatiently waited for the end of the day, then instead of left, turned right leaving school grounds.

His eye twitched when he heard a _familiar_ laugh, “Good choice~” – followed by the flutter of a fan – “Now, that will be ten yen, a special cheap price for my last sale of the day~”

And lo and behold, at the end of the next street on the other side of the wall around the school field, was a suspicious little stand with strands of photos clipped onto red strings dangling below a sign that read ‘ _Urahara’s_ ’. Working it _was_ the shady shopkeeper, but also wearing a new apron that had the name of that website, ‘ _Weird of Karakura_ ’ printed across it.

He shamelessly waved at him, calling them over, “Ichigo-chan~ Hime-chan~”

Orihime eagerly went, and the two of them quickly started haggling over the assortment of sweets he’d brought over while Tatsuki hurriedly followed before the other girl spent all of her money.

Rukia gave him a consoling pat on the back before going closer herself, to look at the lines of photos.

Despite himself, Ichigo came closer, hoping that the stand and Urahara would just be a terrible mirage, but it was real, unfortunately. _Unfortunately_ , because there were a lot of stuff put out on the stand – a booklet detailing the weird phenomenon around Karakura, local myths around them, a copy of that brochure for his neighborhood, collections of newspaper articles, and _lots_ of photos of Kon, both as _him_ and as his plush lion-self.

This was not the work of an afternoon, or even a couple of afternoons. Nor even all of it.

Somehow, he doubted, this was all of it.

Tatsuki flipped through one of the collections of newspaper articles idly as Rukia seemed fascinated by the photos, _most_ of which were of _unusually high quality_ and from _unusual_ angles. _Some_ of which had him in his shihakushou.

That line from ‘Madame Akiyama’ popped into his head again: _bad things will rain down on you – you may even lose your will to live_. His eye twitched as he met Urahara’s gaze over that fan.

“ _Why?_ ” Ichigo slammed his hands down on the stand, making the whole thing shudder.

The fan fluttered around, as his eyes turned up in mini-smiles in the shadow of his hat, “Whatever do you mean? Ichigo-chan~”

His fingers curled around the edges of the stand as Urahara shamelessly continued, “This is a business opportunity, and it would be shameful of me to ignore it. There is certainly an audience for it! Karakura is quite proud of its local cryptid~”

The vein in his temple was throbbing, and the urge to just flip the whole table and knock over all of these ‘products’ rose.

“Do you object, Ichigo-chan? Does that mean you are confirming that you _are_ the Flying Boy~”

Tatsuki hip-checked him as she smiled at the shady shopkeeper, “Do you have a permit to be selling things on the street?”

The fan fluttered a few times in front of his face, “Of course! What sort of a businessman do you take me for?” She tapped her lips as she looked over at where school security was being pointed their way by a familiar face, “A shady one.”

Ichigo knew Ishida wasn’t doing it for _him_ , but the act was still appreciated.

The fan fluttered a few more times, speeding up slightly as Urahara saw where she’d been looking.

“So _mean_ , Tatsuki-chan~ I’m just doing business!” Ichigo didn’t need to see half of his face to know that he was pouting at them, his voice a dramatic whine, “Tessai-chan is going to dock my allowance _again_ for getting arrested, _again!_ ”

Then he was smiling chirpily at the pair of men that were approaching them as Rukia pulled him away, “Hello~ What can I do for you gentlemen today~” – waving his fan around his stand – “Perhaps I have something that interests you!”

Ichigo was sputtering past the hand Tatsuki had slapped over his mouth before he could loudly question the ‘ _arrested again’_ and get security’s attention, which just barely let them hear, “Do you have a permit to be selling this?”

Orihime was giggling as they rushed to escape the scene of the crime.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> #Ishida: that shady shopkeeper kept smirking and smiling at me this morning, trying to get me to buy proof of Kurosaki’s inability to be subtle, and now I’m going to have to find another route to and from school or have to deal with THAT again  
> #Ishida: . .  
> #Ishida: . . .   
> #Ishida: he probably doesn’t have a permit to be selling stuff on the street  
> #Ishida: then once he’s gone, I won’t have to find a new route  
> #Ishida: . .  
> #Ishida: it has absolutely NOTHING to do with helping Kurosaki


	17. Chapter 17

The rest of the week until Wednesday evening was relatively quiet.

Urahara didn’t show up again, thankfully, and the excitement over him being called out for the show died down until the day of, when he kept getting asked if _he_ would be there and he vehemently denied it. There weren’t even very many hollows to distract him.

Which meant that Ichigo didn’t miss the _looks_ Karin kept giving him, as she tried to prompt him to have the conversation that she’d started about the things _other_ than the spirits of the dead they saw, that they both _knew_ were out there. It wasn’t exactly a conversation he _wanted_ to have, but it was one he couldn’t put off forever after missing a perfectly good opportunity to give her a brief overview. The Grand Fisher had made it clear that she _needed_ to know at least _some_ things if she was going to keep herself safe, because he _knew_ that even if they’d managed to mostly stay ignorant about hollows before Rukia had shown up, it wouldn’t hold forever.

He’d thought it since Rukia had shown up chasing after a hollow coming after _him_ , but their family really _was_ hollow bait. Everyone around him, too, because as much as Rukia liked to complain about his _Ichigo-ness_ like it was a joke, she _did_ have a point. The people around him didn’t follow the rules she knew; they were developing the ability to _see_ , and _fight back_.

Tatsuki and Chad were prime examples of the latter certainly.

And Karin was a little _too_ much like _him_ to not fight if confronted, but any such fight would just be a repeat of Rukia’s arrival with Karin playing his part and without a Rukia to give her the power she maybe lacked.

( _Possibly_ lacked. The Grand Fisher _had_ proven that their family wasn’t _quite_ as defenseless against hollows as originally assumed.)

He was her big brother, and he was supposed to _protect_ her from a fight like that.

It made Ichigo suddenly understand a little bit about why Goat Face hadn’t told them about hollows and shinigami and Quincy. He didn’t _agree_ with keeping them in the dark, but he _understood_ why Isshin kept putting this conversation off until when he absolutely couldn’t.

Karin was just like him though, and she would want to _know_ even if she would really rather just remain ignorant.

It ultimately came down to not, telling or not telling her, but _how_.

He would have to deal with Rukia mocking him about how her drawings _were_ good enough to explain things, if he asked her for the drawing pad that she’d used to explain for him. This on top of how she wouldn’t be on board with telling Karin in the first place – he _understood_ that she had her orders to ensure that the existence of shinigami and hollows was kept from the general populace, even if it was a bit of an open secret among the people around him now.

(He _remembered_ why it was important, and what happened if too many people knew.)

He didn’t entirely know if Rukia honestly didn’t know that he’d told Tatsuki and Chad about what they’d seen considering how many hollows he’d come across in the last two and a half months and how often they were around him, or if she just thought they were walking around with fragments of memories she’d thought she’d replaced but doubted had worked. They’d deserved to know, just like Karin deserved to know, but where Tatsuki, like him, just didn’t seem to have the words but _knew_ what he was talking about, and Chad had just needed to know that hollows were dangerous and why, Karin would need _more_.

Karin would need the whole spiel that he’d got, and then some because it was only because he’d already _known_ some things that Rukia’s explanation had even made _some_ sense to him, and why finding out hollows had been human once hadn’t made him almost walk away from the whole business.

(Karin would _voice_ those self-same thoughts that he’d had since he’d met Yûichi’s mother, since he’d talked with Orihime’s brother Sora, about if they were really _that_ different, if they were _all_ monsters. And he didn’t know _how_ to answer her.)

So, he avoided the conversation as the week dragged on, all the way up to the night before Spontaneous Trips would film in Karakura. Then he told her as much as he knew the words for, about hollows and shinigami, spirits and plus souls.


	18. Uryuu Interlude

Uryū had absolutely no intention of being anywhere _near_ the abandoned hospital that _Spontaneous Trips_ was going to be filming at, least of which because _Ichigo_ was going to be there and the other teen was a living magnet for trouble. He had no doubts that whatever Ichigo said, he _would_ end up there and _would_ end up on TV, and considering the fact that he was nowhere near subtle chasing after Kuchiki in a shihakushou during _school hours at school_ , that even if the camera _somehow_ didn’t catch him, more than a few people would seem him regardless.

If the world found out about shinigami, he wouldn’t shed a single tear, but that didn’t mean the world needed to find out about _Quincy_. He didn’t know everything about the Quincy since his grandfather had died before he’d finished telling him more than the basics and his father had no interest in being one let alone passing it on, but he _did_ know that despite being from an old branch, they’d split from other Quincy exactly _because_ they had disagreed about revealing themselves to the greater population. He even _agreed_ with the stance considering what had been at risk – was at risk – if their not-quite-human powers were discovered.

It would be just desserts though if _shinigami_ were exposed to the whole world, considering how his grandfather had died.

He hated _shinigami_ , but while he didn’t _like_ Ichigo, he didn’t _hate_ him.

If Ichigo was accused of witch-craft – or heaven-forbid, taken away by the _government_ – because he had to take care of a hollow when there were so many witnesses, it would make Yuzu _cry_. He was a big enough man to admit that the idea of Yuzu crying – _actual_ crying, and not the crocodile tears that had cowed the pet shelter near the Kurosaki clinic – was more than a little terrifying.

He’d already had a healthy fear-respect for her perfect maneuvering to get him to come over for _dinner_ – he shuddered to think what she’d do for something of _actual_ consequence – but the pet shelter had really hammered home that _she_ was a little _terrifying_.

He did _not_ want to suffer her tears.

So maybe he had _intended_ to stay as _far away as possible_ from that living ball of chaos masquerading as a teenage boy, but just hanging around in the _area_ to make sure Ichigo didn’t reveal more than he already had being the Flying Boy of Karakura was still being nowhere _near_.


	19. Chapter 19

They’d hardly gotten to the filming location for Spontaneous Trips when Ichigo remembered _why_ he hadn’t wanted to be here, _beyond_ his newfound status as a cryptid: his asshole friends.

As he followed his family into the gathering crowd, doing his best to ignore the whispering around them as his hair was spotted and recognized, a tick started to form by his eye. Then he was seen by his _friends_ , the majority of whom – _seemingly_ reflexively – crossed their arms and did that stupid laugh, “BOHAHAHAHA!!”

(He wasn’t _sure_ about it being _reflex_ because Chad and Orihime _definitely_ didn’t mean anything by it, and Keigo was just a little shit so it was 50-50, but _Mizuiro_ was _undeniably_ an _asshole_ that was doing this _on purpose_.)

There was a moment of silence as they just stared at each other – with Chad soon walking over to show Yuzu a photo of his new set-up for his cockatiel, Orihime looking a little embarrassed as she dropped the pose after a moment, and Tatsuki giving him a pointed look towards Karin that he gave a small nod to as Rukia seemed to disappear into the crowd – then Keigo and Mizuiro jabbed fingers his way accusingly, “You came!”

He glared at the two, “Shut up!! I’ll mangle you all!”

They clutched each other’s hands dramatically, like they hadn’t _intentionally_ been little shits and known how little he liked being here or hearing and seeing that stupid gimmicky pose, “H-he said he’d mangle us!” “Dear me, young people these days!”

“Ichigo!” Turning away from them with a roll of his eyes, he turned his attention towards where Orihime came a few steps closer, and the two idiots escaped when his back was turned, “Um, sorry about that.”

He looked blankly at her, not getting what she was apologizing for, “ . . For what?”

“Tatsuki told me you hate this show and why . . I didn’t know.”

Considering that her gaze was stubbornly downcast, like she _really_ thought this was worth apologizing for and not just something that annoyed him, he wondered _what_ exactly Tatsuki had said, even if he _did_ have an idea, but waved off her apology all the same, “Oh, that. Don’t worry. It’s really not that big of a deal.” – gesturing to where Keigo and Mizuiro had quickly ‘recovered’ from his scolding, doing that stupid gimmick with Goat Face and Yuzu while Karin just looked at them, completely unimpressed at the rampant stupidity among their close associates – “They know I hate it too, but they still do this. I may not like it but I’m not going to stop them because they do.”

She lifted her head, tilting it slightly, “ . . You came though. Why?”

Karin was looking like she was starting to regret having any association with the other two members of their family. He could actually almost _see_ her weighing the pros and cons of disowning them and begging Ryūken to adopt her, “Yuzu and Dad are big fans.”

“Your sister and your father?”

Ichigo pinched the bridge of his nose as he saw Kon hold that stupid pose as a stuffed animal from where he was sticking out of the bag at Yuzu’s feet, because open secret or not among their household, they were in _public_ , Kon, “Yeah.”

(And he was _glad_ that the Devil Cat had other places to be tonight, because Kon they could at least explain away as having a voice-box hidden in his stuffing, and his limbs had stiff enough stuffing to hold poses.

A _talking cat_ required a bit more work, and he was _not_ prepared for that.)

“And that’s why you came? Even though you hate it?” He watched how Yuzu swiftly picked up her bag, zipping it up to where only Kon’s head stuck out of it as she carried it on her front as she bounce-stepped over to Chad.

The way she said that, it didn’t sound like she was _just_ talking about why he was there, “Huh?” – and as he glanced over at her, she wasn’t really looking at him or at them as her fingers ran over one of her hairclips – “I couldn’t let them come alone.”

Her smile was different than what he expected, though he couldn’t quite say _how_ , “You’re very thoughtful, Ichigo.”

“I am?” He didn’t _get_ what she meant, but he _was_ smart enough to know it had to do with her brother, “It’s just what you do for people you care for.”

She looked at him, and he met her gaze, stumbling after the sentiment he thought she needed to _hear_ because he knew Sora had been just like him in this; had even _agreed_ with him about this, “Big brothers especially. We come first to protect and care for the ones that come after us.”

Only once the words were already out of his mouth, did he realize that if she _really_ didn’t remember that night, this _would_ remind her and Rukia would have his head for ruining the one memory replacement that had _worked_ ; she was so _touchy_ over how the kioku-chikan hadn’t really worked at all with his family and friends.

After a moment, Orihime smiled blindly bright, and then punched him in the arm like Tatsuki did when she thought he needed a reality check.

She stared at her fist for a moment, then colored and ran away.

Ichigo had _no idea what had just happened_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> #Ichigo is the Big-Brother equivalent of the Mom Friend #Ichigo has so much Big Brother Energy #Ichigo Supports Proper Big Brothers  
> #Sora is remembered  
> #he’ll remind you what being a Big Brother means soon Byakuya X3


	20. Rukia

Rukia didn’t much understand what was going on regarding this festival, _Spontaneous Trips_.

Ichigo’s friends had invited her out with them even before Keigo had asked her out for it, and she’d wanted to go to see what this unfamiliar festival was about but she had hesitated to agree since it would be dereliction of duty if Ichigo couldn’t respond if she was across town doing something for fun. Then he’d left with his family and she’d happily met up with Tatsuki and Orihime on their own way over, _pleased_ at the excuse to go.

As par usual, she’d only understand a quarter of what Orihime talked about on the way, but she’d enjoyed the time with Ichigo’s friends – with _her_ friends. It was a novel experience since she wasn’t particularly close to in her squad since Kaien had died aside from with her captain, and _Renji_ had been _weird_ since she’d been adopted by the Kuchiki in the Academy, so _friends_ were a bit new.

It made Rukia remember the old days when it had been just her and Renji against the world, through thick and thin, and she _missed_ that. She knew logically it was due to her becoming a noble, but it still _hurt_ that her old friend had done everything _but_ blatantly ignore her. She’d accepted before this that maybe they’d both been busy enough that neither of them had really made time for the other, but when she went back, that excuse wouldn’t be _good_ enough.

She missed _Renji_.

It kept her in a bit of a melancholy mood as they walked, but she eventually dropped it as they got closer to the abandoned hospital and she picked up on the excitement of the crowd. Then, because she was looking every which way trying to take it all in, and thus it was the only reason she even _noticed_ the younger Ishida on the edge of the crowd.

She’d left Ichigo behind to follow because she didn’t understand why _he_ was here. He’d shown nearly as much distaste over this as Ichigo had, and it made her curious _why_ he’d come out. Ichigo at least made _sense_ why he’d come anyway.

The problem was that as she made her way back out of the crowd to where she’d seen him, she didn’t see him again, though she _thought_ she caught a glimpse of a certain green haori instead but when she looked again to be sure, there was nothing there.

Then she saw Ichigo walking along one side, scowling down into a magazine, and she left both alone to call out, “C’mon, Ichigo! Cheer up!”

He looked up, and once she had his attention, she did that _weird_ pose and laugh, “BOHAHAHAHA!!” And she suddenly, _instantly_ , knew why Keigo and Mizuiro did this near Ichigo, because _his face_ was _hilarious._

Rukia couldn’t help her grin as she caught up to Ichigo, who was now trying to ignore her, “Hey, why the face!?”

His scowl was fierce enough that even glaring down at the magazine, people moved out of his way, “What face? It’s my everyday face!” – shutting up anyone who even tried to open their mouth to comment on him being there, aside from her – “You’re here now, so you might as well try to enjoy yourself!”

It was actually a little impressive, though her brother was a _lot_ better at it with just one look.

It was also like a flash to the past, because she _remembered_ Kaien giving this exact look to Sentarō and Kiyone when they’d been particularly rowdy in their nearly-daily arguments after just joining the squad. Not that those arguments had stopped since, but he’d always been able to quiet them with just a single look even as all his wife had had to do was _be_ in their vicinity to do the same.

It threw her off enough that it took a moment for his words to process, then she was looking out at the crowd and figured if she could have fun, so could he, “You must be tired from school and helping me with my job. Take this opportunity to unwind!”

First though, “What _is_ this festival about?”

“YOU CAME HERE WITHOUT THE SLIGHTEST CLUE!?”

She wouldn’t be asking if she _knew_ , Ichigo, but she knew _enough_ that it would draw attention to ask somebody _else_ unfamiliar to her unfamiliarity to the modern world of the living.


	21. Chapter 21

Ichigo pinched the bridge of his nose as he tried to explain what they were here for, but it was hard to explain a concept when they kept having to segue into what television was and how, but _eventually_ he managed to just promise to show her a TV.

However, he wasn’t going to _touch_ upon how pagers and cellphones, even computers to a degree, and the idea of long-distance surveillance, the latter something he knew of due to not-his memories, were all things that Soul Society had but somehow _TVs_ weren’t.

Rukia nodded self-satisfied with the explanation after understanding on her own that (most) TV shows were like extended plays, and that it was for entertainment, “ . . So, it’s a TV show . . Now I get it!”

He was fairly certain she _didn’t_ get it, but considering the brewing headache he’d gotten from trying to explain professional play-acting, he wasn’t going to try to explain any further. Instead, he turned the conversation to a more prudent topic, considering the _feeling_ he had here now that he was close enough, “Anyway, is there really a spirit here in the old hospital?”

She looked at him, “What?”

He gestured at the shabby-looking building that clearly hadn’t seen any love since almost ten years prior, when it was put out of business, by the elder Ishida if he remembered right, “It’s like a horror film cliché.” – flapping his hand at it because it was pretty much the number one story for the genre – “Somebody dies with regrets, can’t move on, even after the building is abandoned for a newer, better one. If it’s not a high school, it’s a hospital.”

She blinked and he continued, “Hot springs are also pretty high up there for locations for that. It’s a pretty prevalent trope in horror media, in pretty much anything that references the supernatural even.”

It was actually really annoying, like he _understood_ , even better now since finding out about hollows, that it was a trope for a _reason_ , but it was also massively over-done with little variation of details.

As such, considering that he and Karin could see the dead and he’d long since discovered that Halloween was full of people just getting better and better with monster make-up, it had been unanimously decided that it was better to just _not_ go out. Thus, the whole Kurosaki family had turned Halloween night into a critique of horror films, and _that_ particular trope was in roughly half of the movies they marathoned.

Which, in retrospect, the horror films were probably a contributing factor of why Yuzu hadn’t been the slightest bit fazed by a burglar and had calmly incapacitated that kid who’d broken in.

Ichigo continued before she had a chance to respond, “If there were ghosts here, wouldn’t a shinigami have taken care of them by now?”

“Not necessarily.” Rukia looked at the hospital critically, “It’s more common than not that places like this are haunted by a fixed-location ghost, but _jibaku_ blend in with their environment so the Soul Society’s sensors can’t detect them usually.”

“Excuse me, coming through!!”

Ichigo opened his mouth to ask what _didn’t_ count as ‘usually’, but as he side-stepped for someone coming up behind, she continued without pause, “The only thing that that will make a _jibaku_ show itself is-“

“Set the lights back!” Ichigo watched the man carrying a spotlight escape the crowd, “Back!” – and had feeling he was about to see the _jibaku_ – “Just set ‘em way inside!”

A shriek cut through the air, nearly freezing the blood in his veins with its sheer level of hostility and making him drop the magazine he’d picked up for Madam Akiyama’s weekly prediction.

“-if someone invades its territory.”

It fell open to show for cancer: _You’re in the clear for this week!! You will make a new friend and a new world will open up to you!_


	22. Chad Interlude

Chad lingered over by Ichigo’s little sisters for a while, before he spotted Keigo crumbled on the ground with tears streaming down his cheeks.

Just as he made to see if anything was wrong with his friend – though considering he could see that in the direction Keigo was facing was Mizuiro in between a pair of older girls acting shy, he had a feeling it was just him being unnecessarily dramatic – a shriek cut through the air.

Some of the people around them shifted uneasily as others acted like they hadn’t heard a thing. He’d paused mid-step at the shrill noise, because it was almost but not _quite_ what he remembered the thing Ichigo had called a hollow sounding like.

His first instinct was to try and look for Ichigo, because if _he’d_ heard that, so had _Ichigo_ , but considering Ichigo was better equipped to deal with it, he instead made for where Keigo had curled almost into a ball.

His friend’s face was a little pale as he looked up once he realized he’d come to stand by him, “C-chad!”

Then he scrambled to his feet, and though he would immediately deny doing such a thing if he commented on it, shuffled so close there was barely an inch of space between them, “What- I-I thought you took off, Chad.”

He didn’t say anything about it as he used his superior height to again see if he could spot Ichigo, and when he did, Ichigo looked his way, a furrow in his brow before he gave a slight shake of his head.

However, considering Keigo’s reaction – and having heard from Tatsuki about the theory that their frequent exposure to Ichigo might be making them more sensitive to spirits, _them_ more so than others – he thought maybe Keigo should be let in on the secret if he wanted to know, “Keigo . . did you hear something . . like a weird scream?”

Keigo’s eyes were wide as he rapidly shook his head, “N-no! I didn’t hear an-anything! S-stop that, you’re freaking me out.”

He wasn’t surprised at the instant denial since Keigo was terrible with things like this.

“Sorry . . my bad.”

It was enough to know that Keigo wouldn’t hesitate to get well clear of a hollow if he had the misfortune of coming across one.


	23. Chapter 23

Ichigo didn’t know how, but he’d known when Chad was looking his way, and he’d seen the question in his friend’s eyes, that he was wondering if that noise was a hollow. He’d give a small shake of his head, because he _knew_ it wasn’t even as he asked Rukia, “Who’s screaming?”

She didn’t notice that _or_ how he searched the crowd for Tatsuki, “That’s the cry of a _jibaku_ , so there _is_ one here.”

Tatsuki was tall, but she wasn’t like Chad who made it easy to spot him in a crowd.

He _knew_ without being told the answer for what he was asking, but he asked anyway, “A _jibaku_? It sounds like a hollow to me.”

Rukia bit her lip as she looked for what he’d already seen and dismissed for the moment; the chains holding the _jibaku_ to the hospital, “It’s a whole in the process of becoming a hollow, so it would be accurate to say you’re not exactly _wrong_ since that’s the cry of a demi-hollow.”

She pointed them out to him, “Look! His center is bound to this hospital.”

The _jibaku_ screamed again.


	24. Karin Interlude

Karin had startled at the first scream, but it had been a quiet startle considering how often she’d see things and then pretend not to without anyone aware. She’d ignored it, and how it made her feel a little ill.

(A cold sweat had broken out at her temples, but it was more the fact that she felt a bit _hungry_ that made her nauseous.

She didn’t know there was a clear gold tint to her eyes as a hand covered her mouth, trying to not gag and _disturbed_ by the way her mouth watered.)

Then there had been a second scream, louder than the first, shriller and _angry_ and a part of her wanted to snarl back, annoyed at its toothless roars.

The rest of her just wanted to _leave_ , “I should have just stayed home.”

Goat Chin looked at her in concern, “Huh? Karin? Is there something wrong?”

The fact that his eyes were a bit tight, and his normal level of _extra_ was unusually subdued distracted her from how her stomach fluttered, “Nothing.” – particularly as his shoulders tensed as another scream echoed – “It’s _nothing_.”

It distracted her from how another scream made her feel _worse_ , even as she hoped this psychic wasn’t a complete fraud and thus could deal with this nasty spirit _before_ Ichigo got involved; It reminded her of how her father had reacted when the wall of the clinic had been broken by that monster.

Maybe just Ichigo and her had inherited the ability to _see_ from their mom but considering that fuzzy memory of Yuzu making a bow of light that she’d guided towards a different monster that she was almost sure Ichigo had been fighting and Goat Boy’s reactions here and then, maybe they’d _all_ had a certain _sensitivity_.

Her eyes narrowed as she turned to where Ichigo had been before she’d been distracted by the screams, mouth opening to demand that he tell her what was going on here, only for him to be _gone_.

She groaned as she put her head in her hands.

“Karin?? Karin, are you feeling okay??”

Her brother was going to end up on national television, wasn’t he.


	25. Tatsuki Interlude

Her head jerked up at the sound of the first scream, hands reaching immediately into that _not-space_ where her fingers brushed against warm _sand_ , against _feathers_ , for _steel_.

Tatsuki didn’t blink when as she did, a _voice_ she knew-but-didn’t was whispering in her ear as if from a great distance.

 _Almost_ able to _hear_ him despite that.

( _Sharpen your talons, fledgling, for the eerie must be defended._ )

As her fingers closed on her _bagh nakh_ , the city around her wavered around her for a desert like a mirage, and the _screams_ faded beneath the crashing of the sea behind her as a great large shadow came from the distance, and she could _almost_ see them– see _him_.

The sight of his warm gold-copper avian eyes stuck out even as she couldn’t quite see if he was a large bird or a man with a feathered cloak, before he was heralded by a great gust of wind and a hawk cried out _kōya_ _kōya_. She shut her eyes and felt feathers rain down on her, catching in her hair, before opening them to hospital again, with only dark-spotted beige feathers left to say what she’d seen was _real_.

It was Orihime catching the sleeve of her, then reaching across her to pluck at a feather in her hair with curious, tight eyes, but it didn’t go anywhere, just making her wince as it was revealed it had seamlessly woven into the hair behind her ears – “Your eyes . . why do you have feathers, Tatsuki?”

Tatsuki blinked copper-brown eyes, unknowing of the new dark streaks along the top line of her eyelids sweeping up and out at the corners like wings, “What about my-?”

_Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa . . . !!_

They both flinched at the noise, Tatsuki clutching the bronzed steel on her hands tight, before her eyes zipped over the crowd for a familiar head of hair.

( _Gather the aerie for the hunt, fledgling, to defend the nestlings._ )

She couldn’t see _Ichigo_ unfortunately, but she could see _Chad_ and led the way towards him.


	26. Chapter 26

“A demi-hollow?” Ichigo looked back at the _jibaku_ , “He does feel a lot like a hollow but he doesn’t have the mask, and the hole in his chest hasn’t completely opened up yet.”

He kept an eye on him as the hair on the back of his neck raised, and he turned his head to see that Tatsuki and Orihime had joined Chad and Keigo.

“That’s right.” Ichigo squinted at Tatsuki, because it _looked_ like she’d gained a few feathers for her hair.

( _. . will be glad to know you survived Miyako’s death, Mōkinnokōya._ )

“The hole in a hollow’s chest is the sign of its lost center, its lost conscience. A hollow is a mass of raging instinct.”

Rukia didn’t see the look he gave her for _that_ , because they’d already _seen_ that was oversimplifying things. He _knew_ she’d started to question the black-and-white views she’d been given ever since she’d met him (again), _and_ that part of her just blamed that on how the rules she knew of the universe didn’t apply around him.

(Even if there _did_ turn out to be some truth to his supposed-cryptid state, that didn’t explain Orihime’s brother Sora, or the boy Yûichi’s mother Himari, though. _They’d_ fought through a hollow’s instinct for _love_. It had been _hard_ for them, but they _had_ , even if just for a _moment_.)

“The white skull-mask shields its naked id from the outer world, but it isn’t necessary if they have a center, a _purpose_ that keeps them _human_.”

The way she was biting her lip, looking conflicted told him all he needed to know that she _was_ thinking of the pair of hollows that had broken all the rules she’d known about hollows. That she was thinking of maybe what else she knew about hollows might be wrong.

“People die and the chain of _inga_ – of fate – that grows from the center is severed. Those without strong regrets wait for a shinigami to guide them on, but- those who have regrets, are anchored to them by their chain of fate. If their regrets involve a person, they become _tsuka_ spirits, and if their regrets involve a place, they become _jibaku_ spirits.”

Ichigo looked back at the _jibaku_ , “Then either it’s the hospital or something that happened here that binds him here.”

“Well . .” He moved to stand next to Rukia, as the _jibaku_ started to scream something _less_ non-sensical.

“THIS HOSPITAL IS MINE!!! I WON’T LET ANYONE TAKE IT FROM ME!! YOU GUYS BETTER NOT COME IN HERE!! IF YOU DO, YOU GOTTA PAY ME! OR I’LL KILL YOU ALL!!”

“I WAS SUPPOSED TO INHERIT THIS HOSPITAL FROM MY FATHER!” Without looking away from the _jibaku_ practically frothing at the mouth as he screamed, Ichigo elbowed Rukia pointedly in the side, “Something like that?”

“I WAS GONNA MAKE MYSELF FILTHY RICH OFF THIS PLACE! I WAS GONNA DRIVE A PINK CADILLAC, AND DRINK FROM DOM PERIGNON, AND BE THE KING OF NISHI-AZABU’S NIGHTLIFE!! BUT THEN! THAT PIG WILLED IT TO MY YOUNGER BROTHER!! I’LL NEVER FORGIVE HIM!!!”

“Yeah.”

“He’s definitely from the ‘me’ generation.” Rukia raised an eyebrow at him, and he waved off the question as the announcer tapped their mic, “EVERYONE, PLEASE BE QUIET! WE’RE ABOUT TO START SHOOTING!”

Rukia turned away from the _jibaku_ with a curious expression all over her face, “Oh! Shooting! At us?”

It was blatantly obvious she did not understand what was going on, and Ichigo did not have the energy to try and explain it right now after how long it had taken to explain the concept of TV to her.

“FIVE SECONDS!”

“YUZU!! IT- IT’S STARTING!!” “ _DAD!_ ”

Ichigo _wanted_ to be surprised that Goat Face could rival the announcer’s volume, loud enough that he was clearly able to be heard even without his own mic or screaming.

“FOUR . . !!”

He really wasn’t though. Yuzu being able to yell over their father; _that_ was a little surprising. She was of his get, so perhaps it shouldn’t have been.

“THREE . . !!”

The crowd wasn’t far behind Isshin in their excitement though, just quieter, almost like they were holding their breath as the announcer continued counting down for when they went live.

“TWO . . !!!”


	27. Rukia

“Good evening, ladies and gentlemen! Tonight’s ‘Spontaneous Trip’ is an emergency live broadcast special that brings us to the Karakura district of Tokyo! Home of local cryptid, the Flying Boy!” Rukia couldn’t help snorting as at the mention of Ichigo, looking over at him to see make a _very_ disgruntled face at the announcer, then narrowing his eyes off into the distance like if he just _tried_ to, he could set Urahara on fire with sheer will.

Which, considering who she was talking about, if anyone _could_ , it _would_ be Ichigo.

She _almost_ told him that she’d thought she’d seen the shopkeeper here, but she thought he might actually already _know_ since he wasn’t looking in the direction of the shop, but off into the crowd. If she squinted, she thought she _might_ be able to see a tall dark-skinned head with braids like Tessai in that direction.

She whacked him on the arm in warning as the man continued, “We are currently in front of the abandoned hospital, where local residents are tormented by the cries of an evil spirit at night and won’t come near this place.”

The crowd was nearly vibrating with anticipation as the announcer fed into their excitement, “How _will_ our hero cook it up for us tonight?!”

Rukia didn’t really get what the excitement was _about_ , but she found herself getting swept up in it all.

“The new century’s premier spiritualist! Hell’s messenger!!”

Rukia’s excitement dimmed with the _reminder_ of how they’d seen hell – _actual_ hell. Her smile faded and her face paled a little as she _remembered_ what she’d seen through the hell-gate, as her own worst hell.

(Permanently stuck in this gigai, to live out a mortal life, slowly losing the ability to _see_ , then the last thing she _sees_ is the blurry backs of Renji, her Nii-sama, and Ichigo, walking away from her, without her, to Soul Society.)

“Without further ado! Mister—” _fwupfwupfwup_ “Don—” _FWUPFWUPFWUP “_ KANONJI!!!”

_FWAPFWAPFWAP!!_

The strange noise above them shook her out of those thoughts as she looked up and saw a strange shape hovering in the sky loudly. As she watched, a spec separated from the thing.

“ _HEY THERE!!_ ”

She blinked, because had the spec _said_ something?

“Huh?”

Then the spec was a man falling from the sky, “ _HOW ARE MY BABIES DOING TONIGHT!!!_ ”

In a garish suit and big hat, with dreadlocks and massive sun-glasses. She could see Ichigo out of the corner of her eye – because she couldn’t tear her gaze away from the strange man, fascinated how he’d gotten up there without stepping on reishi and wondering how he intended to land – make this most dismayed _done_ face, before dropping his head into his hands.

Rukia didn’t really hear what he said into his hands, but she caught something about _doppelgänger_ and _Isshin’s counterpart_ even as the man came barreling down even faster towards them with no sign of stopping.

_WhooooooOOOOOOOOOSSSSSSHHHH!!!_

“SPIRITS ARE . . !!!! ALWAYS . . !!!! WITH . . !!!! YOU . . !!!!!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Elsewhere in the crowd: *Ishida sees Don Kanonji coming down* *unknowingly mirrors Ichigo's reaction*


	28. Chapter 28

Ichigo didn’t raise his head from his hands as the crowd roared, trying to will himself out of existence rather than watch; as the crowd echoed Don Kanonjj, “BOHAHAHAHA!!” “ _BOHAHAHAHA!!_ ”

“Hey!” Hearing Rukia performing that _stupid_ laugh _again_ got him to give her a dirty look.

She looked at him all pleased with herself, excited to have been part of _that_ , “Hmm . . So, that’s the star of tonight’s activities! That was a spectacular entrance!! Hate to say it, but” – then raised a thumbs-up towards where Kanonji had come down from the sky to greet the announcer with a parachute trailing behind him – “Well done!!”

“A special entrance for a special event!”

“Heh, thank you very much.”

“ _Hey!_ ” Ichigo’s eye twitched at her attitude, waving a hand towards where the _jibaku_ was rattling his chains like this was _A Christmas Story_ , yelling and screaming as he tried to scare them away.

“THIS HOSPITAL IS _MINE!!_ GO AWAY!!!”

She blinked at him, “What?”

His gesture got a little more flailing at her lack of concern, “That’s _what!_ Shouldn’t we konsô that guy? What if he goes hollow?”

Rukia shrugged, “Relax. It could take months, even years, for him to become a hollow. He shouldn’t turn in just the next hour or so! It would be a mess if he went wild in a public event like this one. We’ll perform the konsô when this is over.”

Ichigo gave her a dead-eyed look, gestured at himself, then at the good portion of the crowd that looked vaguely uncomfortable as maybe they couldn’t _see_ , or see the _jibaku_ , _well_ , and maybe couldn’t all hear him either, or _well_ , but they _knew_ he was there and _unhappy_. If he was going to be unanimously accused of the normal rules not applying around him, then she should at least be _consistent_ with said accusations considering how often things hadn’t gone as she’d expected since she’d (re-)met him.

“This one’s the worst yet – this spirit has a terrible stench about it!”

She looked blankly right back at him, brow starting to furrow with worry.

“Yeah, I-”

“This one definitely-” The crowd was _deafening_ as they finished Kanonji’s catch phrase, “ _SMELLS LIKE MEAN SPIRIT!!!_ ”

Ichigo whirled around, pissed off at how ears rang. He hardly could hear himself think let alone how Rukia threw on a fake smile despite not taking her gaze off the _jibaku_ , and said, “You’re such a worrywart, Ichigo. It’ll be alright.”

But he _saw_ how she was watching the _jibaku_ like she half-expected him to _do_ something and she wasn’t sure _what_ , only that he _would_.

“They’re in much more pain just before they go hollow. His screams would curdle our blood. Does it look like he’s in that much pain?”

Ichigo saw her point, even if felt like she was more saying that for _her_ benefit than _his_ , “I guess not.”

They were quiet as they watched Don Kanonji directly approach where the _jibaku_ was, “Hmm . . not good . . It’s a very mean spirit.”

“Why’re you wearing that ridiculous hat!? What are you doing in my hospital?!”

“So long as no one irritates that hole in his chest, it should be at least six months more before he becomes a hollow.” Her voice was nervous, and they both found themselves moving closer because what were the _odds_ that Don Kanonji would manage to go almost exactly where the _jibaku_ was.

“I’ll have to use my super spirit cane to finish him off quickly!!”

Ichigo saw the cane and felt a pang of _recognition_ , because that _wasn’t_ a cane. Not completely, anyway.

(He could see a shadow overlaying it, almost in the shape of a _sword_ as it tried _desperately_ to manifest but not _quite_ able to.

It was almost like that feeling of _almost_ he had when his hands curled around a bow-that-wasn’t and how he’d known the feel of the hilt of his zanpaku-tō _long_ before he’d met Rukia again and held it in his hand. Like that feeling of _almost_ he’d had towards Tatsuki since the first time he’d met her, _knowing_ her without ever having met her, and how it had felt _right_ to see bronze talons over her knuckles.

Don Kanonji had a past that he _knew_ , and it was too _easy_ to imagine him in a shihakushō, smiling and laughing as he twirled his hot pink-dyed mustache and showed off star-shaped sunglasses to not-Tatsuki.)

Then the cane smacked the _jibaku_ solidly in the face, knocking him back then making another stab at him. _Directly_ at the half-formed hole.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> #the band (squad) is getting back together again  
> #Don Kanonji has a Past #WHY HIS ‘SPIRIT CANE’ WAS ABLE TO AFFECT THE JIBAKU #His fashion sense has NOT improved in this life  
> #why hello underused characters #want some more backstory and significance  
> #will never not think that there is a missing arc between Rescue Rukia and the Arrancar where so many things from the Human World were going to be further developed #like Tatsuki  
> #I will stan that Tatsuki SHOULD HAVE BEEN RIGHT THERE WITH ICHIGO FROM DAY ONE LIKE CHAD for the rest of my life #no one can convince me otherwise


	29. Chapter 29

“Wha . .??”

_Erk! Erk! Erk!_

The sound of Don Kanonji trying to get the bottom of his cane under the peeling lip of the _jibaku_ ’s broken chain of fate to get at the forming hollow hole echoed unnervingly.

The _jibaku_ struggled, pulling against the chains binding him to the hospital, arms pulled taunt before his fingers could do more than wrap around the cane, yelling, “Wha-What are you doing?!”

_ErkErkErkErkErk-!_

Then _roared_ as the cane _caught_ , “Raaaar!!”

_ERKERK-!!_

Don Kanonji startled slightly as the _jibaku_ yelled directly in his face, “Hey! Relax! It’ll only hurt for a moment!” – then continued struggling to get behind the lip, like he was trying to _pop it off_ – “I’ll pass you on real quick, baby!!”

- _ERKERKERK-!!!_

“What’s that fool doing!?” Ichigo had thought Don Kanonji would just be a fraud, and even after seeing the _jibaku_ he hadn’t been concerned that the TV-psychic would actually be _able_ to interact. He’d _known_ how odd it was that he’d been able to take down Rukia that night they (re-)met, that even if he could _see_ , it took _more_ to _touch_.

Chad had told him once since his fight against Shrieker that he’d been able to _sense_ if a hollow was nearby and almost _see_ them if his head was tilted _just_ right, but when he’d been pushed into traffic, he’d _felt_ it _only_ for a _moment_ before the hollow’s fingertips had ghosted through his skin. That unlike _him_ – or _Tatsuki_ , since it had gone unspoken between them that however Ichigo was able to _touch_ , Tatsuki had that same something _more_ – that making contact was beyond him for _more_ than that singular moment.

He’d never thought that Don Kanonji could _touch_ even if he could _see_ , because just _thinking_ he looked like someone he might have _known_ – but had never _met_ before now – didn’t mean _that_.

( _Tatsuki_ hadn’t been able to _see_ for most of their (second) life, with no sign that she might even be _able_ to until Sora Inoue had made an appearance. Then it had started to come flooding back.)

_ERKERKERKERK-!!!_

The announcer broke through the quiet that befallen the crowd, “WHOA!”

Maybe most of them had or _hadn’t_ believed that Don Kanonji was the _real deal_ , like they’d unanimously seemed to have decided in the same moment they’d started calling him a cryptid, but most were people he’d seen for _years_ and _they’d_ spent most of _those_ years far more _aware_ than they’d acted.

Some could _see_ , others just _hear_ the _screams_ , but most of them had the _sense_ , and they _knew_ Don Kanonji’s cane was _actually_ in contact with something. Undeniably now, where at least they’d been pretending otherwise before.

A sense of unease rippled through the crowd as the announcer continued unaware of the crowd’s mood, “He’s already drawn the deadly super spirit cane!! It is unprecedented for Don Kanonji to use it so early!! Could this mission be that dangerous!?”


	30. Rukia

Rukia didn’t know what to _do_.

It was one thing to joke and complain that Ichigo made the rules of the world bend in his presence, but it was _something else_ to see it in action on a scale like this.

She could _see_ how more and more of the crowd was rippling with unease, sensing something was _wrong_ in a way that she’d been long told that the living just _didn’t_. She’d been told that most of the living were unable to _perceive_ – and it was _why_ so few in the Rukongai felt _hunger_ – because most _wouldn’t_ become plus souls without repeated, prolonged life-and-death situations.

If Ichigo was taken out of the equation, Karakura was a sleepy suburb by modern standards and _shouldn’t_ have _nearly_ as many people even _remotely_ able to sense the impending danger.

_ERKERKERK-!!!_

Ichigo _was_ here though, and he completely changed the odds when it came to anything involving reiatsu. Impossible became not just possible, or even probable, but almost a _sure_ bet.

“Doing that will only hollow out his center faster!”

The sight in front of her left Rukia pale because one of the living _shouldn’t_ be able to touch a plus soul, let alone affect a _jibaku_ like this. The man wasn’t a local, so she couldn’t even blame it on _Ichigo_ that he was defying everything she’d been taught about the living’s power.

Because he shouldn’t be able to affect a spirit without _something_ imbued with even a _touch_ of spiritual pressure, like her glove. Not unless he had enough innate power to grant a hand-held weapon the ability like Chad had with the telephone pole.

_ERKERKERK-!!!_

“If this keeps up, he’ll make him change into a hollow right now!!”

 _She_ _didn’t know what to do, she’d never been trained for a situation like_ this.


	31. Yuzu Interlude

Yuzu had been enjoying the show, having not thought she’d see Don Kanonji pull out the Deadly Super Spirit Cane live, until it had come in contact with _something_. From his place in her bag strapped across her chest, Kon made a disturbed noise, recoiling, “What is he _doing!?_ That will-!”

“C’mon, rest in peace, baby!!”

She might not be able to _see_ like her siblings, but Yuzu had gotten _really_ good with reading how things reacted to what just looked like blank spaces, to infer about what _she_ couldn’t _see_.

It was in how she knew when Ichigo had found a new spirit and despite his usual behavior, brought them back with him because they were _really_ young and they’d died violently and he couldn’t bear to leave them there alone and scared; it was in how he moved around nothing, body language gentle and voice soft.

It was in how she knew Karin spotted a ghost on the side of the street in a crowd; in how she leaned subtly away despite the distance, denying its existence with every fiber of her being.

She’d _seen_ not-Ichigo put his hand on something, and seen the resistance mid-air.

She remembered the night when the wall of the clinic had been broken, and the feeling of _unease_ that had had her moving towards their mother’s bow. She remembered the sense of _dread_ when the wall had broken, as their father had been knocked aside by an unseen hand.

She _remembered_ the _feeling_ of _something_ beneath her hands as she’d scratched and clawed as she’d been lifted up off the ground.

 _Whatever_ Don Kanonji was doing cranking his cane in the air like that, it wasn’t _good_ , and Kon was _scared_.


	32. Isshin Interlude

“The time has come for me to free you from the nightmare chains that bind you!!”

Isshin paled at the phrase, _nightmare chains,_ because that suggested that Don Kanonji could _see_ the constricting chains of a _jibaku_ or _tsukurei_ – though considering the location, it was likely a _jibaku_ – and the way his cane hovered mid-air meant he was _in contact_.

The way Kon recoiled and made a disturbed noise told him _everything_ about _where_ Don Kanonji was in contact. The bad feeling he’d had about being here amped up, because if the man could _see_ and could _touch_ , it wasn’t _safe_ here for his kids. Not if there was even a _chance_ that the ice crawling down his spine was the unheard sound of Don Kanonji digging at the half-hollowed hole in a spirit’s chest, speeding up its encroachment – and Kon’s reaction said it was _exactly_ that.

Don Kanonji would be the new hollow’s first meal both for being in the former- _jibaku_ ’s territory and for forcing them to change – but if he had enough power to use a normal cane as a spiritually-imbued weapon, then he could buy the audience time for Kisuke to get here, if he wasn’t already.

“YEAHHHH!! Kirukiruaunan Aumakukirunan!!”

Isshin grabbed Yuzu’s and Karin’s hands, about to scoop them up into his arms to _leave_ when he caught sight of out of the corner of his eye, Don Kanonji make a familiar hand gesture unlike anything of what he’d seen in the man’s recordings but was _unquestionably_ familiar. He squinted, because _it couldn’t be_ – the man’s spiritual pressure felt roughly around the strength of Karin’s – more than his and Yuzu’s but less than Tatsuki’s – but he could _feel_ the way reiatsu loosely gathered around Don Kanonji, like he was _actually trying_ to perform, “Kidō?”

Even if the _chant_ was just _nonsense._

“There it is, the cleansing lyric!! Is he ready to finish it off!?”

Maybe he would ask Kisuke after the night was over what the _odds_ were for two (three) reincarnated shinigami being in Karakura, but his old friend likely would just give him a dead-eyed stare and just say Ichigo’s name, like that _meant_ something.

The hair on his arms, on the back of his neck, stuck right up as something unheard echoed around them. He watched the crowd go from uneasy to queasy – and really, there was a _lot_ of the living with more than normal reiatsu in Karakura, and as he gradually gained his own reiatsu back, it was undeniably a _lot_ more than the already _unusually_ high number it had been twenty years ago – as Karin yanked her hand out of his, face terribly pale as she clamped both of them over her ears, eyes wide and golden-tinted.

He pulled her into his arms, pulling Yuzu in too as _her_ eyes gleamed faintly gold like he’d never seen, normally hardly able to be noticed even when _looking_ for it, but now near-undeniable.


	33. Uryuu Interlude

Uryū had _intensely_ regretted being here when Don Kanonji had made his entrance via helicopter and parachute, looking as gaudy as the elder Kurosaki and acting just as flamboyant.

He’d almost left before he had to accept that perhaps there was _another_ walking, talking, fashion disaster. He shuddered to think of the two not just existing separately, but _influencing_ each other’s loud fashion.

 _Sadly_ , he’d seen Isshin enough times around the hospital to know that the heart-patterned pants he currently was wearing was _tame_ for the older man.

(The record for his _loudest_ outfit was tie-dye skinny jeans with a pineapple-patterned Hawaiian shirt, his short hair in tiny pigtails – and he’d been _absolutely horrified_ at the sight as a kid. Luckily his father had banished the abomination of fashion from the hospital before he could get more than a couple of feet on the hospital grounds and subject his father’s hard-working staff to his appearance.)

Then he’d focused back on the spirit in front of the hospital, reiatsu sparking off his fingers with each scream it gave off as it got more and more agitated. Already, it was more hollow than not, but any other day, he’d known it would have a long while before it turned, and wouldn’t have been concerned even if he’d walked up and kicked it in the face.

But it wasn’t any other day – _Ichigo_ was nearby.

 _Years_ , he’d watch the basic rules his grandfather had laid down for him about spirits and hollows, how they related and how they interacted with the world, be broken by Ichigo.

His grandfather had even _said_ that Karakura had _always_ had more active spirits, it had been why their family had moved from Tosa _to_ Karakura in the first place, but while apparently the last century had _fluctuated_ in an odd way when it came to the number of spirits versus the number of hollows, turned or drawn to Karakura, the last decade-plus had seen a _sharp_ increase of hollows. It wasn’t hard to figure out the common denominator between the increase in hollows over the last fifteen-sixteen years, the number of active spirts, and those who could _see_ , as all being related to Ichigo’s mere _presence_.

Because Ichigo had been letting out a just _stupid_ amount of reiatsu since he was little – and was a constant low hum in the back of his head, hardly noticed until it was gone after getting a good _distance_ from Karakura. Ichigo had been blanketing the town in his reiatsu ever since he could remember, and there was something _odd_ about it. It didn’t behave like any _other_ reiatsu he knew; _potent_ and _heavy_ , tasting like sea-salt and tingling across the skin when directly poked. Thanks to the town-sized blanket off reiatsu though, it stimulated everyone under it with a low-key _life-or-death_ feeling that triggered a growth in a person’s own reiatsu.

On top of that, Ichigo _never_ failed to take a milk-run type of encounter with a spirit or a hollow, and throw in a wrench from left field, but _particularly_ since Kuchiki had shown up out of the blue.

Like how, while he’d been too far away to see it all clearly – because he’d sensed the hollow show up close to the growing _sense_ of Orihime and Tatsuki, but he’d been on the other side of town originally and could only run so fast – he’d _seen_ Orihime be attacked by a hollow that had once been her brother, but before he could try and take the shot despite the distance, the hollow had pulled off its own mask rather than attack Orihime again. His grandfather had _never_ said that was _possible_ ; a hollow regaining its humanity, even for just a moment, and suiciding instead of hurting who it had been targeting.

Then there was that not-cockatiel Chad had carried around, possessed by a spirit and hunted by two hollows.

And how Ichigo had been possessed – was _still_ possessed – by a spirit that flip-flopped between him and the stuffed toy lion that Ichigo had seemed to start carrying around since after Tatsuki had reacted negatively to his possession. Uryū had missed the initial possession, but he’d _seen_ the bladed weapons on her hands that had seemed to fade out of existence before his eyes even if everyone else had been _distracted_ by the wreck she’d left the classroom after her rampage.

Considering Ichigo’s track record, where the spirit _should_ have been fine to leave alone for the night – and would have just continued yelling and screaming but unable to _do_ anything to those that crossed the property line – it wasn’t likely. If anything, it was more of a guarantee that it _wouldn’t_ be fine to leave alone.

The spirit’s reiatsu was fluctuating as Don Kanonji somehow – he didn’t know _how_ , but he could guess _why_ it was possible – jabbed his cane right into the half-formed hollow hole.

The spirit _roared_ and Ishida started forward before he thought about it.

“This doesn’t look good! If this keeps up . . !”

He’d _known_ about this spirit – having stumbled across it months ago – and had never thought twice about how if a shinigami didn’t happen to stumble across it, it would turn into a hollow, because Quincy weren’t _equipped_ to help a spirit move on in the reincarnation cycle. As it hadn’t been either an immediate problem or one that he could really do much about, he’d figured if Ichigo didn’t find it soon, he’d _then_ think about what he might do about the spirit/new hollow.

“Damn!”

He was running, but he didn’t know what he’d _do_ when got out of the crowd.

He only knew that he had to do _something_ as he rushed past Kuchiki, reaching out to jump over the rope separating the crowd from the show as _Ichigo_ jumped over.

Maybe he’d never _like_ Ichigo, but it was hard to _hate_ him for being a shinigami when he didn’t hesitate to do things like this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> #Canonically #Ishida is THERE  
> #in the panels where Ichigo starts running forward, he is intersected by glimpses of another teenage boy with very familiar loafers and dark hair rushing forward, then we see two different hands go for the rope before Ichigo is jumping it though Ichigo’s hand obscures Ishida’s face in the next panel but we all know exactly who the only person who would wear a button-down shirt after school is  
> #Humor me for a moment #but what would ISHIDA HAVE DONE IF HE’D BEATEN ICHIGO OVER THE ROPE #it’s NOT in his character to make a scene with an audience #not the least because Ryuuken would have had a coronary if his son had interrupted the show on live television like Ichigo #like WHAT WAS YOUR PLAN ISHIDA
> 
> #fashionista Ishida


	34. Chapter 34

Ichigo made eye contact with Ishida as he jumped the rope, noting instantly that the other teen had had the same idea – stop Kanonji before the _jibaku_ turned hollow.

Ishida nodded before moving off towards the cameras, as he cleared the rope, “ _STOP!!_ ”

Don Kanonji looked up at him over the head of the _jibaku_ , as some of the TV crew panicked at him brazenly ignoring the boundary, and something crossed his face.

(He _remembered_ meeting him, as a skinny little kid trailing after not-Tatsuki with big hair and bright eyes, thanking her for saving his life. Then again, wearing a white-and-blue uniform, chin raised as he adamantly insisted on joining the 13th after graduation, before standing in a _shihakushō_ following after a white-haired man in a white haori into a compound.

He _remembered_ seeing him bloody and wan, surviving _just_ long enough to bring _her_ body home before dying in front of him.

He _remembered_ the short-lived grief before _he’d_ died too.)

“What the . . ! Who is that kid!?”

“ _Security_! Stop him!!”

Then the moment passed.

“Isn’t that the Flying Boy?!”

“He did show up!”

“What’s Kurosaki doing??”

An excitement built in the crowd because just having something unique could put them on the map, but that something unique showing up with both an _audience_ and getting caught on a _live_ recording _ensured_ it. Even a short-lived tourism boom would do their sleepy little suburb good.

It was _almost_ enough to overwhelm the unease amongst the majority of the crowd, if not for how some began to take a step back because if they’d been one of those agreeing Ichigo was a cryptid, they’d _also_ previously experienced when things around Ichigo went haywire, and thus, were _cautious_. Even the fact that no less than five men rushed up from behind him before he got more than a few steps, and tackled him down to the ground, didn’t make them re-close the gap that had opened up between the crowd and the rope.

Ichigo went down with a loud, “WHOA!!”

“What’s that about?”

Ichigo struggled against security’s hold, not even flopping around like a caught fish as he remained half-crushed beneath the combined weight of five men, wheezing as he looked _directly_ at the man that he _knew_ despite having never _met_ before today.

Don Kanonji’s face scrunched up like he was _trying_ to figure out why he could look _familiar_ when they didn’t know each other, grief and confusion and recognition flashing across his face in intervals.

Turning his head this way and that, trying to not get it ground into the ground as one over-zealous security guard dug his knee into the small of his back, he saw Tatsuki ignore him in favor of looking narrow-eyed at Don Kanonji, like she was trying to figure something out.

“There seems to be a disturbance on the edge of the crowd. An over-excited young man dressed up to mimic the local cryptid, the Flying Boy, rushed into the battle zone only to be restrained by security.”

He couldn’t see where _Ishida_ had gone though.


	35. Chapter 35

“Ichigo!?”

“Hey!! Get off him!”

Ichigo could hear Yuzu call out, “What are you doing, Ichi-nii??” – as Karin snarled out from where she was likely straining against Goat Face’s arm around her chest – “Get off – _get off_ – my brother, assholes!! You’re crushing him!”

As he forced his head back – and scraped up his cheek in the process – he saw Yuzu be handed a struggling Karin, crushing Kon between them, as Isshin reached out towards the rope, clearly intending to join him on the other side. Then his face was shoved back down into the ground, as Yuzu caught their father by the back of his shirt and nearly choked him out in the process.

“DON’T COPY HIM DAD!!”

He yanked his shoulder out of one man’s grip, before getting a knee beneath him, levering himself into a kneeling position with one arm planted in front of to hold himself up off the ground, “Let go of me!!”

He gave a jerky nod as he saw Chad make his way closer, as Tatsuki yelled out, “What the hell do you think you’re _doing_ , Reiko?!”

Don Kanonji’s head jerked up, scanning the crowd for a moment with wide eyes. Then an arrow narrowly missed his face, and disintegrated one of the chains binding the _jibaku_ to the hospital.

A second arrow hit another chain.

He managed to fight his way to his feet, “Let go of me! If you don’t stop, something terrible’s gonna happen!!”

A sixth security guard joined the fray, nearly knocking him down flat, “Shut _up_ , kid!!”

Ichigo groaned as his breathe was knocked out of his chest from the combined weight of several large muscled men, but he stayed standing. Their holds were sloppy and they weren’t coordinating together for more than pinning his arms together behind his back, now that he wasn’t flat on the ground, with one all but wrapping octopus-style like a deadweight to one of his calves, but quantity beat quality here.

“Cut to commercial, quick!!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> #there is SPECIFICALLY a panel where we see that Michiru is hanging out with Ryo Kunieda in the evening


	36. Chapter 36

“Ichigo!! Come here! I’ll change you into a shinigami!!”

His voice was sharp as he wordlessly admonished her for just _yelling_ that, “ _Rukia!!_ ”

(Maybe they weren’t doing a very _good_ job keeping the secret, but it didn’t mean that she needed to let all and sundry hear her say that. Only partially because it sounded crazy, but mostly because _enough_ of the town likely _wouldn’t_ just _dismiss_ the possibility of shinigami existing as the ravings of a mad woman; they’d _believe_ her – which would have _consequences_.

If she wasn’t careful, this would earn her a visit from the Onmitsukidō, possibly even a one-way trip to the _Ujimushi no Su_ if the wrong person heard about this.

The older part of him wanted to drop his head in his hands and bemoan his protégé’s lack of _tact_. _He_ didn’t have _much_ , but at least he had _some_.)

Only, she’d hardly crossed the rope before she was being tackled to the ground just as fiercely as he’d been despite being a tiny woman that he _had_ picked up and thrown like a sack of rice before, by three of his guys.

“Get her!!”

Which was _overkill_.

Particularly because for as scrappy a fighter as Rukia was, her gigai was _pathetically_ weak, and without her kidō at full strength, _Yuzu_ could take her down in less than a minute flat if his younger sister ever wanted to.

She struggled like a wet cat in a paper bag though, nearly slipping out of their grip numerous times, “Let me . . go!!”

“Be quiet!!”

Once two of them had a good grip on her, the third returned to where he’d almost entirely shook off two, to edge closer towards where Kanonji had paused his ‘exorcism’ in favor of spotting wherever Ishida was shooting from as a third arrow _just_ missed one of the _jibaku’s_ chains.

“What are you doing!? Shake them off and get over here, Rukia!!”

Her eyes narrowed dangerously at him, “Why don’t _you_ shake them off! You’re a _guy_ , aren’t you!?”

A vein popped on his cheek as he struggled against the renewed efforts of his security guards, “Hey! C’mon!! You’ve only got two guys on you! Look at all these gorillas on me!!”

“I said-!” One of which punched him in the face, “BE QUIET!!”


	37. Chad Interlude

Chad was already moving past where Mizuiro had joined Tatsuki and Orihime next to Keigo when Ichigo got punched.

Keigo winced, “Ouch!” – before realizing what he was doing, and started chasing after him – “Hey, Chad!? Where you going!?”

“To help Ichigo.”

He tried to grab his arm, but Chad wasn’t slowed more than a step, practically dragging Keigo – then Mizuiro as Keigo called him over – with him as moved forward, “Stop, you’ll make things worse! Didn’t you see!? Ichigo started it!! Didn’t he!?”

Chad _didn’t_ see.

Ichigo _wasn’t_ the sort to _do_ something this for _nothing_ , so he _trusted_ that there was a _good reason_ for Ichigo to have jumped the rope. Even if he couldn’t _see_ like Ichigo, he wasn’t completely _unaware_ : he could just vaguely _hear_ a screaming spirit nearby, and Don Kanonji had his staff mid-air, _clearly_ caught against _something_.

If someone _had_ started something, it was Don Kanonji; Ichigo was trying to _end_ it.

Regardless of reasons or context though, Ichigo was in a fight and outnumbered – getting beat up because Ichigo cared _less_ about _winning_ this fight than getting loose and to the screaming spirit to _stop_ its _pain_ – and _that_ was _more_ than enough reason for him to use his strength.

Orihime fluttered around them, chewing on her lip as she would grab Keigo and try to pull him away, then put herself in his way trying to stop him, then return to Keigo or Mizuiro, “H-hey! Kurosaki-kun wouldn’t want you-!”

“ _Raaaarrrrrr!!!_ ”

The spirit’s scream suddenly changed pitch, at once both growling and shrieking – almost a _howl_.

Tatsuki charged past him then, vaulting over the rope, “REIKO!!”

“The disturbance on the edge of crowd seems to have gotten more complex. A friend of the deluded young man seems to have mistaken our Premier Spiritualist as someone else.”

Chad stepped over the rope, and started lifting the security personnel off Ichigo by the backs of their shirts like they weren’t only a head shorter than him and weighed no more than a bag of rice.


	38. Chapter 38

“ _Ichigo!!_ ”

“I _know_!!” He didn’t waste a moment knocking back the one man still on him, before making brief eye contact with Chad as his friend was swarmed by more personnel. Chad not so much _fighting_ them as he was just _unmoved_ by them, like an ox by ants.

“Hey, you! Stop that!”

“Who are you, boy!? Stay out of this!!”

 _Tatsuki_ wasn’t looking at any of them though, her eyes narrowed on Don Kanonji, and stalking forward with _intent_ – though even _he_ didn’t really know of _what_. At least four security personnel swarmed her before she got more than two steps past him, pinning her down while Don Kanonji looked like he’d seen a ghost.

Then the whole world tilted, and he was turning towards it, hand snapping out to hold the weapon pressing rubber into his temple as he caught a glimpse of green, before he was going ass over teakettle. Skidding back several feet on his face and front as his body slumped in front of Urahara with his hand still wrapped around his cane.

“ _Oooowwww_ . .” Ichigo pulled himself to his feet, rubbing at his face, “Who did that!?”

“Huh? Urahara!!”

“Hi-ya~ <3”

 _That_ got him _looking_ at the older man, because that was the voice he used when he was up to _something_. Not to mention, he still hadn’t been forgiven for the whole ‘Flying Boy of Karakura will be here’, “Hat-n-clogs!? What’re you doing here??”

Tessai approached Urahara with two kids in tow, and the fact _he_ was here lent some real reason to why _Urahara_ was here, which was that it _wasn’t_ just to mess with his head. Urahara just waved his fan at him, “C’mon, we’ll talk later.” – and he gave him one last narrowed eye look – “Go get him, Kurosaki.”

(It was always better to be suspicious of Urahara than caught unaware.)

Then he ran off towards Don Kanonji.


	39. Rukia

She stopped fighting the man that had stayed on her instead of going after Chad – or to where Tatsuki was still struggling and yelling at Don Kanonji – to side-eye the blond, “Why . . are you here, Urahara?” Suspicious because there wasn’t any real reason for him to be _here_ unless he knew something she didn’t.

His gaze wasn’t on her, but on Don Kanonji though, an unreadable look on the part of his face she could see above his fan.

(What she _could_ see though, was somewhere between long-suffering and _that changes things_. Neither of which made much sense to _her_ for him to be about _Don_ _Kanonji_.)

“ . . Are you up to something crooked?”

Rukia didn’t understand the look, but Shiba-fukutaichou had said it was always better to be _suspicious_ of Urahara than be caught unaware by him. Even if when he’d said it, she’d not understood _who_ he was referring until she’d been assigned to Karakura Town roughly two months ago, then truer words had never been spoken.

“Please!” He smiled, and it did the opposite of giving her _any_ reason to _believe_ any denial to such, “I’m not up to anything, I swear!”

She snorted, and he gave her a hurt look as he closed his fan, “You see,” – then rested a hand on the girl’s head from where she’d come up to hold onto his haori – “These kids really love the show. They just _had_ to be here tonight. So, I grudgingly brought them.”

Tessai turned his head away from them, before gently shooing the kids towards Isshin and his girls as Urahara waved his fan-holding hand in a _guess-I-had-no-choice_ gesture that was so sarcastic it was almost audible, “And lo and behold, I hear your scream from the other side of the crowd.”

“Hey!! I _didn’t_ scream!”

He continued on like she hadn’t said a thing, “And when I got here, to my astonishment-”


	40. Kisuke Interlude

Kisuke paused mid-sentence as he was interrupted, “Hey, you!”

He turned to blink innocently at the man as he opened his fan and hid half behind it, “Yes?”

Not that he thought the tactic would work, but the more time he could stall, the better chances for Ichigo to actually konsô the _jibaku_ before it turned without interference. Since _apparently_ the odds of someone _seeing_ Ichigo were _much_ higher than any of previous predictions, even the ones made _after_ making the boy a cryptid in the eyes of the town and thus giving him a more accurate actual count and not a guesstimation.

Which wasn’t even mentioning that _apparently_ Karakura was _the_ place to be for reincarnated shinigami, since Don Kanonji now made the _known_ count, _three –_ and didn’t the human saying go: _once is a fluke, twice is coincidence, three times – three times is a_ pattern?

Ichigo, he could have dismissed as simply being part and parcel with being a Shiba, since they _lived_ to defy the impossible. Even Tatsuki, he could have as she’d been a Shiba in everything but blood. Tatsuki’s protégé though . . that was a _pattern_ , that for the moment, leant towards something _unique_ with the Thirteenth Company. The real question would come if it was _just_ those that had died with Kaien, or if there were others that perhaps remembered more than they’d all assumed before.

It would be worth asking Yoruichi to see if she could keep an eye out for other known deceased shinigami. Starting with those from the Muguruma Commando Unit, because if it _wasn’t_ just the Thirteenth Company, _they’d_ be the ones that had the best chances of _remembering_. Whether it was because of the Hogyoku, or Aizen’s involvement, if it wasn’t partially because of a Shiba, those would be the shinigami with good enough reasons to remember despite _supposedly_ forced-to-forget on rebirth.

Also, because if she could find _them_ – and they remembered, or at least had the _possibility_ because of it, since Ichigo was perhaps still a catalyst to actually remembering – then he had both a trump card and a foot in the door.

Kisuke was brought out of his musing over reincarnated shinigami by the _deeply_ unamused look on the security man’s face, “Do you know these four?” – then gestured at Ichigo’s body and Rukia, and at Tatsuki and Chad – “I’d like to have a word with you over here. Right now.”

“Um . .” He fluttered his fan a few times before settling on a vaguely indignant tone, “Excuse me, do you think I know _every_ rowdy teenager? _I do not_.”

The man did not look the least bit amused by his attitude, pointing to the side.

They just stared at each other for a moment. Then Tessai walked right past them and picked Ichigo’s body up, carrying him over towards his father without the man’s notice.

Kisuke sighed, starting to follow as one hand dug into a pocket of his haori, “I’m just a humble shopkeeper.” – and pulled out his kioku-chikan – “I can’t get mixed up in _all_ _this_ and go to jail!”

Then it flashed and let out a puff of smoke, and all the security personnel blinked and slumped, against Chad and Tatsuki and Rukia.


	41. Rukia

Rukia blinked for a second at the rather pointed _all this_ being directed in the direction that Ichigo’s body had been princess-carried away, before focusing in on how Urahara had used _Soul Society equipment_ , to escape getting arrested. _Again_. Because she _hadn’t_ forgotten his earlier comment about having been arrested before.

“You . . !” Rukia threw off the security personnel trying to crush her with his dead-weight, “ _Idiot!!_ You can’t _do_ that!!”

Urahara was already running away from the scene of his crime, one hand holding his hat to his head as the other clutched his cane, “ _I had no choice!_ Tessai _won’t_ bail me out again!!” She followed on his heels, “You butted in!!”

Chad scooped up Tatsuki and carried her over his shoulder as he ran back behind the barricade as she yelled, “Dammit, Chad!” – squirming against his hold, pounding on his back – “What do you think you’re _doing_ , Reiko!?”

Then Urahara tripped over a black cat that darted into his path with a suspiciously familiar cackle.

She’d _wondered_ where the Devil Cat had been during all this, since he’d disappeared at some point the night before, but she was not surprised that he’d shown up _now_. She was half-certain the Not-Cat _lived_ off chaos like this, and _that_ was the real reason why he hung around the Kurosaki family, since they seemed to always be in the epicenter of chaos.

Rukia found she only could stare as his eyes narrowed beneath his blond fringe, hat knocked off his head and crumbled on the ground by her feet, before he was reaching out and flicking the cat in the balls, “Bad Princess!” The cat yowled and a paw quickly swung out and clawed across his face.

She made direct eye contact with him as he started bleeding and gave him her best imitation of her brother’s silent judgement combined with Shiba-fukutaichou’s _I’m-disappointed-in-you-and-your-life-choices_ before turning to watch how the extended Kurosaki clan closed ranks around Ichigo’s body, hiding him from sight.

Yuzu popped Kon out of the lion plush to shove inside Ichigo’s body without pause or hesitation, and the only ones to blink twice were Keigo and Mizuiro; the latter just raising an eyebrow as the former flailed, “What . . ?!”

It made her wonder _when_ Ichigo had _told_ them – _any_ of them; though Tatsuki and Isshin probably already knew some things, no matter how much none of them mentioned it – and if her kioku-chikan had worked for _anybody_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> #Tessai, Yoruichi, and Kisuke share one (1) braincell (read: Common Sense) #Tessai has primary custody 
> 
> #Yoruichi and Kisuke are 15-year-old boys at heart


	42. Chapter 42

Don Kanonji had frozen where he was in the middle of exacerbating the situation with the _jibaku_ , his eyes on Tatsuki. Ichigo couldn’t blame him, since if Chad was _any_ less strong, she’d be loose and considering how worked up she was, _he_ didn’t _know_ what she’d do.

(The _smart_ man was afraid of her, because Tatsuki wasn’t afraid to beat it into somebody’s head what they did wrong – and that _wasn’t_ new behavior. He _remembered_ that Not-Tatsuki had done it too; only, she would wear a smile that _looked_ harmless, even as she adjusted her _bagh nakh_ on her hands, and made it hurt.)

He thought that she at least wouldn’t use any _weapons_ , but Ichigo didn’t want to test that though.

“G _RAA_ **AH**!”

( ** _Aren’t you_ hungry _, King!?_** )

“Stop!!” At the sound of the _jibaku_ ’s wavering hollow-esque screech, he ran full tilt at the distracted Don Kanonji, knocking aside the cane – “Wha-?” – before they went tumbling ass over teakettle away from the _jibaku_.

“Huh!? Something’s happened! Don Kanonji was suddenly thrown back with tremendous force!!”

Don Kanonji was sprawled out for a moment as Ichigo straightened himself up, about to ignore the probably-reincarnated shinigami in favor of dealing with the _jibaku_ in the short time he had left before it turned into a hollow, when the back of his shihakushou was caught, “Wha . . What is it son!? Why are you interfering!? You’re just a spirit!” Ichigo gave him a deadpan stare, not about to ask Rukia’s stupid question of _you can see me?_ because that was _obvious_ considering he’d essentially tackled him to the ground and was now being _grabbed_ , “Don’t you know who I am!? The new century’s premier spir-!” – before a chill went down his spine at the sudden lightbulb that went off behind Don Kanonji’s eyes – “Oh, I see!! You’re one of my deceased fans, eh, boy!?”

Ichigo’s eye twitched as a vein popped on his temple with the almost audible _snap_ of his patience, before his hand snapped out and squeezed around Don Kanonji’s throat in warning because _hell no_ , “Do you _want_ me to kill you?”

He didn’t realize his eyes had gained an undeniable golden shine in the face of the almost-hollow, as Don Kanonji rapidly shook his head with the little bit of give that he had.

( ** _Because_ I _am!_** )

**KARK!**

“GRAH!” Ichigo dropped Don Kanonji without a second thought at the sound of the _jibaku_ beginning to turn, rushing over there as _fast_ as he could, “GRAR!!”

“GRAAAAHH!!!” Ishida fired another arrow just as with a loud explosion of sound, the _jibaku_ disappeared – _shattered_ into a thousand pieces – and the arrow’s path wavered then took a sharp nosedive into the dirt at the feet of where the spirit had been; at _his_ feet when he got there a second too late, and stumbled to one knee in front of it.

The _jibaku_ had become a hollow.


	43. Chapter 43

His gaze didn’t linger long on Ishida’s arrow before his eyes were flickering every which way as he tried to _find_ the _jibaku_ as it reformed into a hollow, _knowing_ that it wouldn’t go far from the hospital but that was still a fairly good-sized area to search.

“Hey . . what just happened?”

Ichigo stood up, hand going to the handle of his zanpaku-tō, “Rukia! Where did it go!?”

“Just after Don Kanonji was thrown back . . there was a tremendous explosion of energy . . Is Don Kanonji all right?!”

“Y . . YEAHH!!! MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!!”

Ichigo looked towards his family and friends, and met Tatsuki and Goat Face’s eyes for a moment before Chad let her go, “Get some distance!”

She nodded, even as she continued glowering at Don Kanonji for one last dirty look, before throwing Keigo over her shoulder and pulling Mizuiro along, “What?? Tatsuki!?” Isshin herding Karin and Yuzu, then Orihime, and the two Urahara Shoten kids, after her, as Chad followed on his heels.

Kon yelled back, “Don’t do something stupid, Ichigo!”

There was nothing Ichigo could say to that, that didn’t also insult himself since Kon was in his body.

“WOW!! He’s alive! Incredibly, Don Kanonji is unharmed!! And he’s shouted ‘Mission Accomplished’!! That can only mean the cleansing was a success!!”

_Re-e-e-e-e-e-e-n_

Ichigo didn’t bother looking for Urahara, or the Devil Cat as Ishida shouted from behind him, “Above you, Kurosaki!!” His words were nearly drowned out by the cheers of the crowd, “Kanonji!! Kanonji!! Kanonji!!”

“Okay, okay! Thank you very much! I’m getting a real sweet vibe from you babies! You’re awesome-!!”

“LOOK UP!!” Ichigo saw it as Rukia yelled – her voice rising above all the other noise to be _heard_ , unlike with Ishida – how reiatsu was gathering into a humanoid form.

_RE-E-E-E-E-E-E-N_

“Wha . .”

Ishida shot an arrow as the chest started to from, and it seared through it, slowing it down but not stopping the transformation.

_SHUKSHUKSHUKSHUK_

Ichigo didn’t stop and stared as the _jibaku_ ’s head reformed – _SKRF SKRF SKRF_ – and it started to _scream_ , “OH . . AHHHHHHHHH!!!” He desperately looked for a way _up_ other than scaling the front of the building or trying for stairs inside as bone poured out of its eyes and mouth – _SPLLAK! KRAKKRAKKRAKKRAK!!_ – as Ishida fired arrow after arrow, but that only took slabs off its mask that quickly grew back, that then extended out and grew two long whip-like extensions on either side of its mask.

 _That then smacked aside one of Ishida’s arrows like it was nothing_.

( **That is . . curious. And undeniably _dangerous_.**

 ** _No shit, asshole!_** )

“ _Fuck_ . . it turned into a hollow!”

“What . . What is that creature!?” He almost didn’t hear Don Kanonji as he yelled towards Ishida, “Keep it at a distance-!” – then turned sharply towards the older man when it registered, because he’d seen him start to _remember_ and Tatsuki hadn’t needed him to explain hollows – “Huh? You don’t know-? You’ve never _seen_ one before!?” Ichigo didn’t bother listening to the response though – “Of course I have! Don’t you know who I am!? I’m the new century’s premier spiritualist, Don Kanonji! But monster extermination is outside my specialty!!” – because he could _see_ the recognition in his eyes.

Don Kanonji might not have seen one before tonight, but he _remembered_ what had killed him before. The name didn’t mean anything to him, yet he remembered _what_ a hollow was.

It was all a bluff, an excessive sort of showmanship as Don Kanonji flailed his arms up by his head, “WHOA!! I smell it . . I smell it!! THE POWERFUL STENCH OF A SUPER-DANGEROUS SPIRIT!!”

Out of the corner of his eye, Ichigo saw the crew take their cue from Kanonji and start pushing the _very_ willing crowd back towards where his family had retreated, as Ishida kept firing arrows.

“If you’re going to do something, Kurosaki-!”

Only, the arrows weren’t slowing the hollow down _at_ _all_ as it howled, “Feed-! Feed me-!” – and leapt down – “FEED ME A SOUL!!!”

Ichigo started to pull his zanpaku-tō from his back, “Run, Kanon-!!”

Don Kanonji grabbed him by the shoulder and yanked him behind him, “Run, my boy!! Leave this to me!!”

( _Is this how you died, Reiko!? Miyako’s going to have your_ head _on a_ pike _if you died throwing yourself in front of her!!_ )

“Come, Spirit of evil!! The new century’s premier spiritualist, Don Kanonji, will be your opponent!!”

He quickly got his feet under him, “You _idiot!!_ ” – rushing forward and catching the hollow’s teeth with his blade – “ _Do you **wANt tO Die**!?_” Then he bared too any teeth at the hollow as he flung it back and into the wall of the hospital.

“Boy?” Ichigo didn’t know how black licked at the edges of one eye, but he just barely managed to soften the snarl that ripped out of his throat into something less _man-eating_ as he turned towards Don Kanonji “What!!?”

To his credit, Don Kanonji only faltered for a moment to yell back, “Why didn’t you run, boy!!” “Look, Mister, it’s _you_ who’d better run!!”

One of Ishida’s arrows ripped right between them, “If you _ladies_ -! Would stop fighting each other!?”

They both stumbled back to see he’d managed to sink one arrow into the hollow, only for a second to be smacked aside again a second later, and Ichigo rushed forward into the opportunity, “Thanks, Ishida!”

“Me, run!? How dare you!! I will not run! I cannot run away, boy!!”

Ichigo stumbled over nothing when he glanced back, perplexed at that phrasing, “You _can’t_ run away? _Why not??_ ”

( _Miyako, what did you_ teach _the boy??_ )

He barely up his zanpaku-tō in time to block the hollow’s massive hand as it tore itself free from Ishida’s arrow pinning it partially to the wall.


	44. Kisuke Interlude

It hadn’t been a lie when he’d said that the kids had wanted to come to the show tonight, but Kisuke hadn’t been telling the whole truth.

He’d known there was a _jibaku_ here.

He’d predicted the _jibaku_ turning hollow tonight because there were too many factors that could contribute to it, here at the hospital, for it to _not_ happen.

He hadn’t known that Don Kanonji would turn out to be a reincarnated shinigami, though.

Kanonji didn’t have anything to do with his intentions for tonight though, because there had been a _reason_ why he’d brought this situation around. Ichigo had made an _impression_ with how he’d dealt with the konpaku – who even now, was less artificial than he was a Shiba soul without a form of his own – but that been a singular decision. One whose consequences were limited.

Kon hadn’t posed much of a danger then, not even in Ichigo’s body, that he couldn’t take out if it had become too dangerous.

With Kon, Ichigo had shown a mercy and a compassion.

With a freshly turned hollow, he couldn’t show that. Ichigo would have to end things _quickly_ before anyone could get hurt _and_ before too many saw what was going on.

He _hadn’t_ predicted on the Quincy boy stepping forward to aid Ichigo here and now, because Masaki had been as much of an outlier as her son, and it would take much more than this hollow to even _begin_ to foster cooperation between shinigami and Quincy on either side.

It changed things that Ichigo was _already_ turning a long-standing enemy into an ally. He’d anticipated that the Quincy boy would be turned into Ichigo’s ally, but Ichigo had somehow shaved _months_ off his predictions, even the ones he’d adjusted since the boy had him run off school grounds.

He watched Ichigo fend off the hollow with the support of the Quincy boy, and wondered if his original plans had perhaps been too _small_ scale.

“What will you do now, Ichigo?”


	45. Chapter 45

“Oooooo!!”

Don Kanonji didn’t stay behind him as he held off the hollow screaming in his face, raising his staff, and Ichigo sacrificed the stalemate he’d bought to knock the hollow off him and shove Kanonji back.

_KRASH!_

It flew forward with all the momentum it’d tried to get at him with, crashing face first into a wall. Kanonji perked up as it struggled to pull itself out, “A golden moment!”

“Retreat!” Ichigo grabbed Kanonji by the back of his fur collar, and dragged him inside, further away from the crowd, as the hollow pulled itself free and chased after him, herded there by Ishida’s arrows whenever it tried to divert.

Following him inside by smashing through the glass doors.

_KKREEESHH!!_

“WHOA!!”

_klakklak_

“Eeeek!!”

_KLAK_

“What’s this!?” As they ran, they could hear the announcer narrate what he knew of the situation to the crowd, _completely_ unaware that they probably knew more of what was going on than they did, “While battling an invisible entity, Don Kanonji was suddenly hurled through the air as if by some powerful force, and dragged toward the hospital! Then the glass door was shattered!! Could this mean . . that an invisible enemy has captured Don Kanonji!?”

_KLAKKLAK_

“Wh-why are you running, boy!? Let me go!!”

Ichigo didn’t let Kanonji’s struggles slow them down as he ran, because he needed the hollow right on his heels to lure it away from the crowd and if he let Kanonji go like he wanted, he’d just become the hollow-food, “You told me to run!!”

“N-no!! I didn’t mean- I told _you_ to run! But not with _me!_ I- I- _I cannot run away!!_ ”

Ichigo felt his eye twitch at the phrasing, before darting into a room and holding there until the hollow had run pass before back-tracking and going up stairs and just far enough away that they had a moment before the chase was back on.

( **Go _and eat the uppity sonovabitch!! Why are you_ hiding _!?_** )

Once it was safe to – “Huh!?” – he flung Kanonji ahead of him, sending him tumbling ass over teakettle, “What!?”

He jabbed a finger at Kanonji as he straightened, “That does it!! You keep saying _I cannot run away_ but what does that mean!? How come _I_ can run away, but not _you!?_ ” – fighting to not snarl with the bloodlust part of him was feeling, while another part was perhaps a touch hysterical – “Explain yourself!!”

( _DID MIYAKO TEACH YOU THIS!?_ )

Ichigo winced as _apparently_ none of the voices in his head much believed in volume control right now, and it was _hard_ to _ignore_ them at the moment, before using one hand to rub at the bridge of his nose in an attempt to soothe the impending headache.

“I- I’ll throw the same question back at you, boy-!”

He could almost _hear_ his patience snap, “I’M ASKING THE QUESTIONS RIGHT NOW!!!”

( **Anger won’t help here.**

_Not. Helping._

**_No one asked_** **you _, Old Man!_** )

Ichigo winced at how his voice echoed, and part of his attention focused out on how the hollow abruptly stopped going further away and started making its way back as he forcibly calmed down, “You must have _some_ reason for saying it. Why can’t you run away?”

“Well . . It’s because . . I am a hero!” Ichigo felt his eye twitch at how Kanonji’s words didn’t match his serious visage as he said them, “Yes . . While by nature, I am a man who abhors conflict, I am also a hero, so I cannot show my back to any enemy!”

Ichigo just stared at him, the urge to just smack the fool growing.

“Boy, do you know what the ratings for my show are?”

( _Get to the_ point _, Reiko._ )

“I wish I didn’t.” Kanonji acted like he’d just said _yes_ , “Twenty-five percent!! One out of every four Japanese citizens watches it!!! And . . many of the viewers are children.”

Ichigo realized where he was going with this as he continued, “They’re glued to the TV every week when my show is on, watching my heroics after dinner with their families. To _them_ , I am a hero. Those children are inspired by my heroism; by watching me stand up to evil spirits, they learn what courage is! Do you understand, boy? I _cannot_ run from the enemy not with those children watching!”

For a moment, he was touched by the amount of thought put into the philosophy, and he approved. Then Don Kanonji turned on his heel, and made to open the door back into the hallway the hollow was barreling back down, and any admiration he had died a _quick_ death.

“C’mon!! Now that you understand, let’s hurry back to the battle-zone and fight that monster!!”

“Are you crazy!? _We_ can’t do that!!” Ichigo caught the fool by the back of his jacket, because he could see the flaw in Kanonji’s plan to fight the hollow, “We can’t fight near that crowd, people could get hurt!” – being harsher than necessary to hammer in the point – “That wouldn’t be very hero-like, would it!? Doesn’t a hero protect his fans!!”

(Even if the hollow got away from him, it _wouldn’t_ get past _Urahara_ – to touch a hair on any of the crowd’s heads. Not with his kids – and he’d heard that right, hadn’t he? Urahara apparently had adopted a pair of kids?? – there.

He had a glimmer of a memory of Urahara _decimating_ a strike force that had aimed at the distracted back of a dark-skinned woman that he was _devoted_ to, and he had _no_ doubt Urahara wouldn’t do the same for any kid – kid??? – of his.)

Kanonji froze, face paling because he seemed to be _remembering_ why people would get hurt, “That thing is a hollow – it _eats_ souls with high spirit energy. It’s drawn to the souls of people like _you_ and _me_.”

Ichigo winced as he glanced out at where he could vaguely _sense_ his friends and family, “That crowd is verifiable _all-you-can-eat_ _buffet_ with how many souls there are with high reiatsu.” – before turning towards where the hollow was almost back to them – “If we fight _in here_ , nobody but _us_ can get hurt!”

He didn’t have time to clock the look on Kanonji’s face, “Amazing . .” when the ground beneath their feet _rippled_ – _WHOOM –_ then _broke_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> #Announcer: what invisible enemy has captured Don Kanonji!?  
> #Crowd: *recognizes Ichigo*  
> #Crowd: *recognizes ‘The Flying Boy’*  
> #Crowd: Don Kanonji is being pulled out of danger! NOT captured!  
> #Announcer: . . .  
> #Crowd: The Flying Boy is HELPING Don Kanonji!!  
> #Announcer: . . .  
> #Announcer: It appears that the Flying Boy of Karakura is aiding Don Kanonji against this evil spirit!
> 
> #the one (1) benefit to the whole town thinking you're a cryptid


	46. Chapter 46

_KRAK!!!_

Ichigo jumped back to in front of Kanonji as the hollow popped out of the ground like a demented groundhog announcing spring, “GRAHH!!”

He grasped the handle of his zanpaku-tō – “Here he comes!!” – pulling it off his back – “C’mon-!”

_Chunk_

Only, he’d forgotten how _long_ the blade was, and he had compensated for having a _ceiling_ for pulling it over his head, and it dug into the tiles above his head. He corrected at the last second, and it sunk in to a fraction of what it would have been, but it was still deep enough in there that he lost the flow of the fight.

“GRAAAR!!” The hollow charged at him, “C’mon!! I’ll kick you to death!”

He hastily let go of his blade in favor of rolling to the side just before impact, but the hollow didn’t go barreling past him.

_BOOOOM!_

“Are you hurt, boy!”

Don Kanonji had jammed his blade into the hollow’s maw, catching either side on his staff in an eerie repeat of the night Rukia had done similar, “Kanonji! Run!! You can’t beat the hollow!”

( _What did you- what did_ we _teach!?!_ )

“I know.” Ichigo was pulled up short by his answer, “Though I do have some power, I know I don’t have enough to finish this ‘hollow’. But you see, my boy, I was deeply moved by your selfless act, though no one may ever know it, you fight with the safety of the public in mind, your struggle is truly worthy of being called heroic! Allow me to call you comrade!”

“Um . .” Ichigo was touched, he really was, but _yeah, no, he wasn’t encouraging this behavior_ , “No . . thanks, though.”

Kanonji barreled on despite the rejection, “And so comrade, as my final act! Let me fall like a leaf in autumn protecting you!!”

Ichigo could feel the change in the air, just like when Rukia (tried to) cast a kidō, as Kanonji gathered his reiatsu in between his hands, “Kanonji-style Ultimate Secret Principle!! Cannonball!!!”

“What? Wh- what is that?” He saw how the reiatsu condensed into a small sphere, no bigger than the pad of his thumb, “What do you think that’s going to-?”

“Destroy!!”

The small ball started moving forward, right into the hollow’s mouth.

_BOOM!_

It exploded.

“What the-!?”

The hollow _screamed_ as it yanked its head back, mouth bleeding and teeth in shambles. Ichigo turned and yanked his zanpaku-tō free just as it made to run, “That’s my boy! I mean, my friend!!” – and his blade cut deep into its shoulder, “Bisect that monster with one stroke!! You can do it! I believe in you! I believe!!”

It jerked away, sending the blade deeper until its arm was hanging on by a thread, before it lunged to the side, trying to escape, before crashing through a wall to the outside, dragging him with when he didn’t let go of his zanpaku-tō.

As his vision twisted from the hollow’s mad scramble up the side of the hospital, he saw a glimpse of the helicopter that had delivered Kanonji watching as the man himself yelled after him, “Boy!? Where are you going!? Boy!! Don’t leave me!!”

“It’s Mister Kanonji- Don Kanonji has emerged from the explosion and smoke!! He appears to be shouting something!! What? Don Kanonji is on his feet!!”

After the announcer spoke, he _thought_ he heard Don Kanonji again – “Curse you, evil spirit!! You fled to the roof!!! Beyond my reach! But you won’t escape me!!” – but he wasn’t too sure since he had to keep twisting and turning to avoid the barrage of arrows that Ishida was shooting at the hollow but kept narrowly missing _him_.

“AIM _BETTER_ JACKASS! YOU ALMOST GOT _ME_ INSTEAD!!”

An arrow came a hair’s breadth from his _face_ , slamming into the hollow’s shoulder as it cleared the top of the hospital, sending it and him into a tumble onto the roof, which knocked him – and his blade – loose from the hollow.

“Ow!!” He sprung right back up as the hollow charged at him with a howl, “I’m tougher than you think, asshole! The last place was too small, plus I had to protect Kanonji, so I couldn’t _really_ fight! But now that he’s not here, you’re done for!”

Seconds later, the door to the roof slammed open, before Kanonji was standing there, “Sorry to keep you waiting, boy!!”

An arrow grazed the hollow’s face when it started prowling closer, coming too close to the edge of the roof, jerking back a little before it turned towards Kanonji, suddenly looking ten times more angry than it had at him.

“Huh?”

“ ** _GrAAr!!_** ” It lunged towards the man, and Ichigo rushed forward to intercept, “Run, Kanonji!”

“Unfortunately! Right now- I can barely stand up!” Kanonji was leaning heavily on his staff, looking like he couldn’t take a step without collapsing as he sweat heavily.

Ichigo slid in between them, and this time, his blade connected with its face, “Sorry. It’s all over.”

( ** _Should have ate him, King!_** )

“He did it!! Bravo!! You’re a wonder boy!! I knew you could do it!! Well done! You defeated him! With the power of justice you got from me!! You are indeed my-!”

Ichigo slid his zanpaku-tō onto his back, “Kanonji, don’t jump for joy too much.”

_Krakkrakkrakkrakkrak_

“Why, boy!? What are you saying!? You defeated the monster, didn’t you! Why aren’t you happy!?” Just as the hollow started to break apart to reveal the spirit beneath because he hadn’t gotten a clean cut, “What is . . that? The monster’s skin is crumbling away . .”

He knew the exact moment Kanonji saw that, then _remembered_ , “Earlier . . you called it a ‘hollow’ . . I opened the hole, made that man into-!” – and Kanonji looked _haunted_ – ”Everything I’ve done-! I thought by opening the hole and breaking the chains, I was freeing them, but-!”

Ichigo looked at the cane that had remained mostly intact from being shoved between a hollow’s jaws, and from being point-blank to an explosive maybe-kidō, eyeing the design that he hadn’t really noticed before imprinted into the wood – and it looked a lot like the seal on the kashira of his own zanpaku-tō “I don’t know why _exactly_ , but the other spirits you ‘cleansed’ didn’t become hollow, I think because you _do_ have the power to konsō them.” He scratched at the side of his face while looking away, because he had suspicions for _why_ the spirit hadn’t been cleansed like before, “It was just that this time was . . different.”

Kanonji rubbed at the tears sliding down his face because he _regretted_.

Ichigo looked out over the edge of the roof, where the crowd was eagerly – yet wisely, a good distance from the hospital itself – awaited Kanonji to say he’d been victorious, “No more tears . . hero . . your public awaits you.”

Kanonji gathered himself, coming closer to see himself, “Go on, wave to them. Show them the danger has passed.”

He took a deep, steading breath, then threw his arms up across his chest, “BOHAHAHAHA!!”

The crowd _roared_ back, “ _BOHAHAHAHA!!!_ ”

Kanonji didn’t turn away from the edge of the roof as the crowd visibly relaxed below them, smiling and laughing, “Boy . . thank you. It was such a splendid fight. Your courage, your quick thinking, and your strength. Please keep lending me your help.” – before he held out a hand that Ichigo took after a moment – “Well, maybe sometimes, if you’re in the area.”

Kanonji smiled then, just a small thing, “Thank you.”

Ichigo pulled back his hand, just as a twinkle developed in Kanonji’s eye that looked _just_ like when Tatsuki was about to be a _little shit_.

(Dammit _, Miyako, I blame you-!_ )

“From this day forth, you shall be my . . number one disciple!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> #ever thought the crowd is so relieved its all over #because they KNOW there was an ACTUAL FIGHT happening


	47. Rukia

Ichigo looked so put-upon as he slipped into the crowd, and popped back into his body after slipping something into his pocket, easily catching Kon’s pill before they lost him before he shoved it back into the plush without a word.

His eye twitched when she quickly fished that something out of his pocket and held it up to read, and she easily danced out of his reach as he chased after her, “Rukia-!”

“Don Kanonji Fan Club – My #1 Disciple.”

She started laughing even as he caught her in a headlock after stealing back the piece of plastic, that Tatsuki stole a moment later. The other girl snorted before passing it among Ichigo’s friends, who all laughed at him.

Ichigo sulked the whole way home, refusing to acknowledge _any_ of them but Yuzu who just looked so _happy_ , before showing off her own membership card.


	48. Chapter 48

“Utterly . . _unbelievable!!_ DO YOU GUYS KNOW WHAT YOU’VE DONE!?”

Ichigo stared up at the ceiling as the gym teacher looked like he was a heartbeat from having a coronary after he’d assembled him, Chad, Keigo, Mizuiro, Tatsuki, Orihime, and Rukia in the teacher’s lounge with the principal and their homeroom teacher.

He hadn’t failed to notice that Ishida _wasn’t_ there. The little rat _bastard_ probably threw him under the bus at the first _hint_ of questioning because he’d been caught on camera too, and yet _he_ wasn’t getting lectured.

“Look at this!!”

He glanced back down for a moment to see that projected on the wall was a clip of Spontaneous Trips from the night before, before looking away again, “This was broadcast live – nationally – on a TV show shot in our town!! _Nationally!!!_ ”

Mr. Kagine got right into his face, looming over him to where it was impossible to _not_ look at him, “Well?! What do you have to say for yourself, Kurosaki!!”

He looked to the side, meeting where Tatsuki was giving him the look that said she was going to throw him under the bus at the first opportunity and he made a face back at her, because _traitor_ , “He . . looks a lot like . . me.”

“IT IS YOU, YOU MORON!! BEYOND A DOUBT!!!”

Ichigo turned and dead-eyed stared him down, “It’s my long-lost twin brother, Kon. He just got into town.”

He could actually _see_ the vein pulse at his temple, not even faltering at that – which was technically _true_ in a sense, with Kon officially adopted in, “You have a real contempt for teachers, don’t you?” – before he was jabbing his hand blindly back at the projected clip – “DO YOU KNOW HOW MUCH SHAME YOU’VE BROUGHT ONTO THIS SCHOOL WITH YOUR LITTLE TELEVISED STUNT!?”

“Kagine-sensei?”

The man turned towards where Tatsuki had spoken up, “What, Arisawa?”

“Ichigo and Rukia were on TV, as was Chad, that’s undeniable, so I understand why _they_ were singled out, but why are Orihime and I here! Ishida isn’t!”

He just stared at her for a moment, like _isn’t it obvious_ , “He already told me that it was just coincidence, he was just passing by during filming. You two were there _with_ them, weren’t you?” Behind his back, Ichigo made a face at Tatsuki because _ha, if_ I’m _going down, so are_ you.

She narrowed her eyes at him slightly for a moment, “Coincidentally, us too! We bumped into Rukia on our way there.” – before she waved a hand at both the looping TV clip and Ichigo himself – “We had nothing to do with _that_!”

“Hey!”

“Liar! I invited you and Orihime!!”

Tatsuki bull-dozed past both his and Keigo’s objections, “Don’t believe _him_. He’s infamously delusional.” – then made for the door with Orihime on her heels before anyone could object – “That’s what happened! We’re going back to class now!”

Ichigo yelled after her, “ _Judas!_ ”

“ _Should have paid me_ fourteen _silver beforehand then!_ ”

Keigo tried to scramble after them, “Okay, th-then, I’m going too!” Kagine caught Keigo by the back of his shirt before he got more than a step away, “Not you!”

“Why not? I was just there with Ichigo!?”

Kagine narrowed his eyes and got in Keigo’s face, “ _Because_ you were there with Ichigo! You should’ve tried harder to stop him!!”

“ _I tried to stop Chad!!_ ”

“I’m sorry.” Ichigo side-eyed where Rukia started up crocodile tears, speaking in _very_ polite language like she really _was_ sorry to the very depths of her black, shriveled heart, “This is all because I wasn’t strong enough Ichigo. I was closest to him at the time, I even humiliated myself by screaming to stop him from charging in, but Ichigo wouldn’t listen to me.”

Kagine started to panic at the tears, “AAAH! D-Don’t cry, Kuchiki-san!! You didn’t do anything wrong! It was all Ichigo’s fault! Right!?”

Ichigo mouthed _Judas_ at her even as they rushed to escape before Kagine noticed, Ochi-sensei not doing a thing to either stop them or alert her fellow teacher to them escaping.

He still noticed, just as they escaped the room, “HEY! STOP!! YOU HOOLIGANS!!!”

Rukia rushed out right past him, then past them, leading the pack, “COME ON SLOWPOKES!!”


	49. Chapter 49

Ichigo eagerly escaped where Yuzu was ordering everyone around to set up the (first) Kurosaki-Ishida dinner to be just _perfect_ at the sound of the doorbell, rushing away to Karin yelling after him, “COWARD!”

“YOU’RE JUST JEALOUS I MOVED FASTER!!”

He opened up the door without really looking, “Hello? Sorry, we’re now closed in the afternoon on Thursdays . .” Trailing off once he realized who he was talking to, wearing a ridiculous coat and hat.

“I came to take you for a ride, my number one disciple!”

He looked him dead-eyed in the face as he stepped back, closing the door then locking it.

Kanonji caught the door handle before he could finish locking it, “Why are you locking the door, my number one disciple!?”

The door shook and rattled and they pulled on either side of it, “WHY WOULDN’T I!? HOW’D YOU FIND OUT WHERE I LIVE!? AND SO QUICKLY!? YOU FREAK!! GET OUTTA HERE!!”

Kanonji pouted, “Why are you being so mean? I’m a big star, you know? I made a secret trip before we left town because I thought you’d be happy!!”

Ichigo’s eye twitched because, “ _Secret!?_ You’re dressed like an insane, color-blind king!!”

Bright red jacket with gold tassels and sky-blue hemming at the shoulders and around the buttons, and a bronze crown with his name on the front, with acid-green rimmed sunglasses. It was just as bad as some of Goat Face’s clothing choices; his father would probably _adore_ the outfit if Yuzu didn’t _burn_ a replica a step past the threshold.

“But these are the dowdiest clothes I have.”

Then he waved at where he’d failed to notice Rukia hope out of his car, “I’ve already invited your friend, too.”

“L-look, Ichigo!! He bought me all these gourmet rice dumplings in sweet bean paste from Hotei-ya!!”

His eye twitched as he jabbed a finger at the glass door towards Rukia, “ _Judas!!_ All my friends are Judas!”

“Now, open up! Let’s take a ride together, my number one disciple!!” Kanonji started pulling on the door where he’d let it slack in a moment of inattention, almost getting somewhere with it before he noticed.

“C’mon! You just got lonely and bored because it’s your day off!!”

Yuzu started yelling as she came around the corner to poke her head at him, “Ichigo! Stop yell-!!” She very abruptly caught off mid-word, then screeched loud enough to startle everyone.

There was a loud crash and bang behind her from where Karin had been startled, before she was hip-checking him hard enough to knock him aside, “Don Kanonji!!” – then she was opening the door – “I-I’m a big fan!”

Kanonji visibly perked up, “Oh! Really! And such a cute fan!!”

Then Rukia’s pager beeped, and she knelt down to whisper to where he’d just given up exactly where Yuzu had knocked him down to, “A hollow – let’s go!”

She popped him out of his body, then they were running off, “Hey!! Where are you going, boy!? You’re leaving me!?”

Ichigo kept running without pause, Rukia huffing and puffing a little to keep up with him before they narrowly avoided where as they took a corner, they nearly ran Ishida over. It got them the most unimpressed look, “Don’t be late for dinner, Kurosaki.”

“I won’t!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> #I literally finished this at 1 am this morning #spent five hours and right up until my laptop was about to turn off on me to get from 44 on  
> #BUT I FINALLY GOT TO THE GREAT HOLLOW HUNT AND KUROSAKI-ISHIDA FAMILY DINNER AFTER SOMETHING LIKE SIX-SEVEN MONTHS

**Author's Note:**

> I was one (1) chapter off from an even fifty (50) chapters, gawd.


End file.
